As the war in Gaza hits a critical juncture, the approaching Ramadan deadline adds urgency to international efforts, with Israel’s threat of an offensive on Rafah escalating tensions and raising the stakes for peace negotiations.
Category: Israel-Palestine War
When Arab countries started normalizing relations with Israel, they did so disregarding the fate of Palestinians. It was a terrible error of judgment, and worse. Yet while the Palestinian cause remains a cornerstone of political legitimacy in the Arab world, few reasonable solutions are being brought forward, and radicalization continues to gain ground among the masses.
Rafah has become, by far, the largest concentration of displaced people in Gaza. Now Israel is threatening to invade the city, sending waves of desperation among 1.4 million people there. It’s simple: There’s nowhere else to go.
The West’s passive response to Israel’s actions in Gaza is increasingly difficult to maintain in front of the looming humanitarian crisis in Rafah. The lip service of “deep concern” doesn’t bother Netanyahu at all.
Israel’s invasion of Rafah has brought the war on Gaza to its most delicate point. And Netanyahu’s right-wing government may fulfill the wish of former center-left Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “to find that Gaza has sunk into the sea”.
Desperate Gaza residents now wait for a word on the success of ceasefire deal, which could allow them to return home. Even if They don’t know what will come next. But they definitely want an end to the war, and so their significant suffering. They want to return to their homes, even if they are demolished.
Egyptian football legend Mohamed Salah’s careful positioning on the Israeli war in Gaza sparked discussions from fans and non-fans alike. Is it about ideology or sponsorships? And should any of it matter when his job is to score goals not play politics?
Benjamin Netanyahu has firmly rejected Hamas’ latest counter-proposal to Israel’s offer for a ceasefire. Still, a new round of negotiations has begun in Cairo — and it’s ever more clear that the first question that must be resolved is the if, how, when and who of the 140 Israeli hostages will be released. Hamas knows they are its best bargaining chip.
The gap between the positions of the two parties revealed itself to be too wide Wednesday, though talks are continuing in Cairo. When will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no longer be able to justify leaving the hostages in Gaza, and the damage of Israel losing its own allies?
Supplies have already been scarce in war-wrecked Gaza. But now officials say widespread famine is “inevitable” and “imminent,” following the decision of the U.S. and other European countries to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. A report from the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
An Israeli soldier took an infant girl from Gaza after her family was killed during bombings, and brought her to an undisclosed location in Israel. When the news emerged, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, called it a “heinous crime” and demanded the return of the child to Palestine.
Going to the bathroom, one of the most basic human needs, has become extremely difficult to address in Gaza, as hundreds of thousands of people are left without the proper infrastructure, and streets are sometimes flooded with wastewater.
Iran’s allies are attacking the West across the region. The Hamas massacre, attacks on U.S. troops and the Houthi targeting of ships are possibly just the beginning. The fact that the Middle East is so unstable today is due to a decision first made by the U.S. a generation ago.
Children are Gaza’s most vulnerable. For those displaced families living in shelters, the cold weather, lack of food and spread of disease are among the most immediate threats. But children also face trauma, with virtually no resources
By sanctioning violent settlers in the West Bank, U.S. President Biden aims to reassure voters unhappy with his support for Israel, and to push Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire agreement.
Israeli forces assassinated three Palestinian militants in a West Bank hospital. The operation, one of the boldest since Oct. 7, is part of Israel’s long history of covert assassinations in decades of Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel says it is establishing a buffer zone inside Gaza along the strip’s border, as part of its efforts to guarantee security and avoid another Oct. 7. But it’s already led to the destruction of thousands of buildings and acres of agricultural land. In other words: Occupation.
As the Israel-Hamas war continues unabated, the U.S., Egypt and Qatar are pushing to quickly reach an agreement. Will internal divisions be overcome? But even if a deal is struck, the war is far from over.
The “day after” the war and after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a desperate man standing on the edge of his political demise, is the first day of a the two-state solution.
As the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues unabated after nearly four months, brokers and travel agents are now charging Palestinians who want to leave the besieged strip up to $10,000 to get them out, according to Palestinians and Egyptians trapped in the coastal enclave.
Israel has accused 12 employees the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNWRA, of participating in the Oct. 7 attack. The United States and other countries have suspended their funding, which risks worsening the ongoing tragedy for the two million Palestinians in Gaza.
Four months into the war in Gaza, Israel has yet to find top Hamas leaders. Saudi-owned, London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat recently reported on the covert system that allows the Palestinian group communicate without being detected by Israel.
After suffering its heaviest losses in a single day, the Israeli army continues its hunt for Hamas leaders and troops in Khan Younis, an overcrowded refugee camp in southern Gaza. Even heavier Palestinian civilian casualties are feared, as the war appears to be reaching a moment of truth.
The rising tensions between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are about different visions of the geopolitics of the Middle East — but the stakes are also personal for each leader.
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice attempts to turn longstanding international law on its head, writes Kai Ambos, a top expert on international law, for German daily Die Welt.
Omar Sharara, a journalist for the Cairo-based media Mada Masr reports on his exchanges with a Aden, a Palestinian photojournalist in Gaza, since the war began. Amid bombings and communications blackouts, Aden relays his family’s efforts to seek shelter.
Since Oct. 7, Israel has launched a crackdown on Palestinians, in both Gaza and the West Bank. Once the new detainees are taken to jail, they allege that authorities regularly take an extra hard line, including a disturbingly high number of prisoners killed.
After 100 days of war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that he has no plans to listen to what any other country has to say, including his closest allies. There’s every reason to expect the situation to get worse.
The killing of Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil, which came after the Lebanese group launched its biggest strike on Israel since the war began, shows that Israel is more confident than ever of its military and intelligence superiority.
Following South Africa’s genocide allegations against Israel, Netanyahu’s government now has to defend itself at the International Court of Justice. But the lawsuit does not come as a surprise. For decades, there have been tensions between Israel and South Africa, where there is great sympathy for the Palestinian cause going back to the times of apartheid.
Displaced Palestinian families are streaming into Rafah on Gaza’s southernmost border, with Egypt, fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment. With more than one million people now cramped in the town, conditions are dire and many fear another “Nakba,” pushed out of their homeland for good.
Cicero declared that when weapons speak, the law goes mute. So what happens when the law speaks up even as the weapons keep firing? That’s what happening now at the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
The UN Security Council resolution providing for the safe, unhindered and widespread delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza has done little to avoid the most dire conditions from spreading in the war-torn enclave.
Ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival, Israeli officials declared that the army will shift to a more targeted campaign in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu may just be bidding his time.
Israel is pushing for more control of the disputed passage near the Egypt-Gaza border, testing Egypt’s security stance and threatening the peace treaty between the two nations.
Since October 7, the Israeli army has imposed more restrictions and treated Palestinian residents of Jerusalem with unprecedented brutality, appearing to follow up on intention of some of Israel’s leaders to empty the holy city of its longtime Arab residents.
Hassan Nasrallah, the longstanding leader of Lebanon-based Hezbollah, grows stronger in direct relation to the declining influence of his rivals, foreign and domestic — embodying the formula for regional influence of Iran’s axis of powers.
It is rare that a wartime leader doesn’t gain the support of his people. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, instead, has the most dismal popularity ratings in memory. But he is also Israel’s longest-serving leader for a reason. The coming days and weeks will be crucial in deciding his fate, along with that of his troubled nation.
The assassination of a top Hamas leader this week was a much needed victory for Israel’s intelligence apparatus, still reeling from the Oct. 7 attack. But even if other targets are hit, it does not amount to an actual battle plan against Hamas.
Hamas is the largest and most powerful of the militant groups fighting in Gaza, but it is part of a galaxy of organizations that have spent decades in a simmering war with Israel.