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Israel

FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Israel Is Hunting Down Hamas Leaders, One By One — Are Iranians On The Hit List Too?

Iranian media has long blamed Israelis for targeting military and political officials inside Iran. Will Israel's Mossad teams of intelligence operatives resume these eternally murky strikes as retribution for the Oct 7 attack by the Tehran-backed Hamas?

Updated Dec. 9, 2023 at 1:30 p.m.

Two months after the Hamas terror attack in southern Israel and Israel's massive retaliation in Gaza, Tehran insiders say Israel's threat to eliminate those behind the initial Oct. 7 attack is likely to go beyond just the leaders of Hamas.

Though it was Hamas that carried out the attacks that killed more than 1,000 Israelis, many believe it was done in coordination with the Iranian regime, considered the top regional patrons and financial backers of the Palestinian militant group.

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So far Israel has avoided directly threatening Iran, but it is believed in past years to have struck sites inside Iran and even interrogated and possibly shot an unspecified number of Iranian personalities including scientists working on its nuclear program.

Last week, Israel suggested it would not limit its targeted killings to Gaza, and would seek out some of Hamas's top leaders living in exile in different locations in the Middle East.

Hasan Hanizadeh, a regional affairs specialist in Tehran, recently told the ILNA news agency that he believed "Israel will not just focus on the physical elimination of leaders of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. The Zionist regime's intelligence apparatus aims to remove all the leaders of the resistance," referring to the regional militias that have declared their hostility to Israel and the West.

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This Happened—December 9: The First Intifada Begins

Updated Dec. 9, 2023 at 12:20

It was on this day in 1987 that a series of Palestinian protests and violent uprisings began in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel in defiance of Israeli occupation. The confrontation would last for nearly six years.

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NYC Postcard: My Arab-American Friends And The Shame Of India's Foreign Policy

The author's native country, India, is both a burgeoning world power and part of the Global South. And yet, its ambitious Prime Minister Narendra Modi hasn't dared to say a single word against Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, even when countries in South America and Africa have severed their diplomatic relationships with Israel.

-Essay-

NEW YORK — The three years since coming to New York as a graduate student have been the most demanding and stimulating period of my academic life. One of the most exciting and joyous accidents of this journey has been my close friendship with Arab students in this city.

I have shared a house with a Syrian and a Palestinian here in Brooklyn, which I have grown to call home. I now make makloubeh with lal mirch and garam masala. Pita bread with zaatar and olive oil has become my go-to midnight snack. I have gotten drunk on arak and unsuccessfully danced dabke at parties. The Delhi boy in me has also now learned to cuss in Arabic.

These friendships have made me realize how similar we are to each other as people. My best friend in the city happens to be a Palestinian Christian whose family was displaced from Jerusalem in 1948 and has lived in exile ever since.

My roommate is from the West Bank, where she and her family have to face the everyday humiliation of crossing Israeli checkpoints to travel in their own country.

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What If Antonio Guterres Screamed In The Forest And Nobody Heard?

The UN Secretary-General is raising the tone in the war in Gaza, but it comes at a time when international institutions are extremely weak. Looking back at history, that's a dangerous thing.

-Analysis-

PARIS — There was a time when all eyes turned to the UN Security Council as soon as a conflict broke out somewhere in the world. The United Nations was the theatrical enclosure where the great powers of this world would put themselves on stage: Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader banging his shoe on the podium, or Colin Powell, the American diplomat waving his chemical vial before invading Iraq.

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Today, we might almost forget the very existence of the Security Council, even with two major wars are underway, in Ukraine and Gaza. The United Nations is marginalized, which is what risks happening when the great powers directly or indirectly confront each other.

It is even surprising when the UN Secretary-General raises his voice to warn about the crisis in the Middle East which he's declared: “threatens the maintenance of international peace and security”; and raises the risk of seeing in Gaza a “total collapse of law and order soon.”

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In The News
Worldcrunch

Worldcrunch Magazine #62 — Pain And Fury

December 11 - December 17, 2023

Here's the latest edition of Worldcrunch Magazine, a selection of our best articles of the week from top international journalists, produced exclusively in English for Worldcrunch readers.

>> DISCOVER IT HERE <<

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In The News
Anne-Sophie Goninet, Chloé Touchard, Valeria Berghinz and Cory Agathe

Two Months Of Gaza War, U.S. Blocks Ukraine Funding, McDonald’s v. Starbucks

👋 مَرْحَبا*

Welcome to Thursday, where the United Nations warns of a deepening “catastrophe” in Gaza as the war enters its third month, the U.S. Senate blocks funding for Ukraine and Israel despite Biden’s pleas and Italian opera singing wins UNESCO recognition. Meanwhile, Francesca Mannocchi, in Italian daily La Stampa, reports on the consequences of Israeli occupation on Palestinians’ olive harvest and how the social and economic violence has escalated since the Oct. 7 attack.

[*Marhaba - Lebanese]

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Francesca Mannocchi

Palestinian Olive Trees Are Also Under Israeli Occupation — And That's Not A Joke

In the West Bank, a quieter form of oppression has been plaguing Palestinians for a long time. Their olive groves are surrounded by soldiers, and it's forbidden to harvest the olives – this economic and social violence has gotten far worse since Oct. 7.

HEBRON – It was after Friday prayers on October 13th of last year, and Zakaria al-Arda was walking along the road that crosses his property's hillside to return home – but he never made it.

A settler from Havat Ma'on — an outpost bordering Al-Tuwani that the United Nations International Law and Israeli law considers illegal — descended from the hill with his rifle in hand.

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After kicking al-Arda, who tried to defend himself, the settler shot him in the abdomen. The bullet pierced through his stomach, a few centimeters below the lungs. Since then, al-Arda has been in the hospital in intensive care. A video of those moments clearly shows that neither al-Arda nor the other worshippers leaving the mosque were carrying any weapons.

The victim's cousin, Hafez Hureini, still lives in the town of Al-Tuwani. He is a farmer, and their house on the slope of the town is surrounded by olive trees — and Israeli soldiers. On the pine tree at the edge of his property, settlers have planted an Israeli flag. Today, Hafez lives, like everyone else, as an occupied individual.

He cannot work in his greenhouse, cannot sow his fields, and cannot harvest the olives from his precious olive trees.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Moustafa Ibrahim*

My Gaza Diary: The Massacre Has Resumed, Nowhere To Hide

Three days since the truce ended, the Israeli army announced that it had launched 10,000 airstrikes on Gaza since the beginning of the war. Total war continues, with the invader’s fiercest fight waged against life itself.

RAFAH — On the evening of the 57th day of the war, I was facing a situation that no one would envy.

A friend from Jordan called to tell me her brother and his children, who had been displaced from Gaza City to Rafah, were injured by a bombing in the Al-Geneina neighborhood in eastern Rafah, where I now live. She wanted to check on them. As soon as she mentioned her brother's name, I knew that he had been killed. I told her: “I will ask at the hospital, and will let you know.”

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At that moment I stopped thinking. What would I say to her? It is not easy to be the one who tells a friend their loved one is dead.

The next day, the friend called back to say she’d found out her brother had been killed, and that his wife and children had been injured but were fine. She asked this time for help to search for her five-year-old nephew, who was missing and had not wound up at the hospital. After hours of searching, they found his body. He died too from the bombing.

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In The News
Anne-Sophie Goninet, Bertrand Hauger and Valeria Berghinz

“No Safe Place” In Gaza, Zelensky’s Plea To U.S. Senate, Santa Cl’House

👋 Сайн уу*

Welcome to Tuesday, where the Israeli army intensifies its offensive on southern Gaza as the UN warns there is no “safe” place left for Palestinian refugees there, Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky is set to address U.S. senators to plead for more funding and gold has never been this expensive. Meanwhile, Frédéric Schaeffer, in French business daily Les Echos, reports from China on Starbucks’s hefty ambitions for the country’s burgeoning coffee market.

[*Sain uu - Mongolian]

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Elias Kassem

The Red Sea Attack Shows Two Scenarios For How The Gaza War Goes Global

Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated their maritime attacks in the strategically vital Red Sea. Both their links to Iran, and the decision to target key shipping routes raises the risks for international escalation.

-Analysis-

CAIROKeep your eye on Yemen. The Houthi rebel group from the war-torn Gulf nation has not attracted the same attention over the past two months as the Lebanese militants of Hezbollah, considered the most immediate risk of setting the spark that could ignite the Hamas-Israel war beyond Gaza.

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Yet over the past 48 hours, a major Houthi attack on seaborne targets was launched with ballistic missiles and explosive-landed drones. The U.S. said one of its warships in the area shot down three drones in self-defense during the hours-long assault on the vessels, including the Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier Unity Explorer and the Panamanian-flagged bulk carriers Number 9 and Sophie II.

The Houthis claimed the attack in a statement read by their military spokesman, saying the targeted vessels have links with Israel, a claim Israel’s military denied.

“The Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Red Sea (and Gulf of Aden) until the Israeli aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in the statement.

The U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement that the attacks put at risk the lives of international crews working on the ships. And more broadly, CENTCOM warned that “these attacks represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.”

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Elias Kassem

After Abbas: Here Are The Three Frontrunners To Be The Next Palestinian Leader

Israel and the West have often asked: Where is the Palestinian Mandela? The divided regimes between Gaza and the West Bank continues to make it difficult to imagine the future Palestinian leader. Still, these three names are worth considering.

Updated Dec. 5, 2023 at 12:05 a.m.

Israel has set two goals for its Gaza war: destroying Hamas and releasing hostages.

But it has no answer to, nor is even asking the question: What comes next?

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the return of the current Palestinian Authority to govern post-war Gaza. That stance seems opposed to the U.S. Administration’s call to revitalize the Palestinian Authority (PA) to assume power in the coastal enclave.

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But neither Israel nor the U.S. put a detailed plan for a governing body in post-war Gaza, let alone offering a vision for a bonafide Palestinian state that would also encompass the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers much of the occupied West Bank, was created in1994 as part of the Oslo Accords peace agreement. It’s now led by President Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Yasser Arafat in 2005. Over the past few years, the question of who would succeed Abbas, now 88 years old, has largely dominated internal Palestinian politics.

But that question has gained new urgency — and was fundamentally altered — with the war in Gaza.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Elias Kassem

Turkey-Israel Relations? It's Complicated — But The Gaza War Is Different

Turkish President Erdogan has now called on the International Criminal Court to go after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for war crimes, as the clash between the two regional powers has reached a new low.

Since the arrival two decades ago of now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s relationship with Israel has been a mix of deep ideological conflict and cover-your-eyes realpolitik.

On the one hand, Erdogan has positioned himself as a kind of global spokesman for the Palestinian cause. His Justice and Development Party has long publicly and financially supported Hamas, which shares similar roots in the 20th-century Muslim Brotherhood movement.

And yet, since 2001 when Erdogan first came to power, trade between Turkey and Israel has multiplied from $1.41 to $8.9 billion in 2022. Moreover, both countries see major potential in transporting newly discovered Israeli natural gas to Europe, via Turkey.

The logic of shared interests clashes with the passions and posturing of high-stakes geopolitics. Diplomatic relations have been cut off, then restored, and since October 7, the countries’ respective ambassadors have been recalled, with accusations flying between Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Still, over the past 48 hours, Turkish-Israeli relations may have hit an all-time low.

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