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Friends, colleagues, countrymen: After many long months of distancing
FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

The Gaza Ceasefire Is Over, With Western Diplomacy Weaker Than Ever

Diplomacy has failed to stave off a resumption of the war in Gaza. Yes, Israel made clear its goal of destroying Hamas is not complete. But the end of the truce is also one more sign that both the U.S. and Europe hold less sway in the region than they once did.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Unfortunately, the end of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was predictable. In a previous column this week, I wrote that the question was not whether the war would resume, but rather when (and how) it would resume. Israel has made it clear in recent days that it has not yet achieved its goal of destroying Hamas in Gaza, and that it still intends to do just that.

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Still, international diplomacy has not been idle. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Israel on Thursday: the United States was putting pressure on Israel so that, once the conflict resumed, it would inflict fewer civilian casualties — a more “surgical” war.

It is obviously too early to know if Blinken’s words have been heard. The only question is whether Israel will apply the same massive strategy in the south of the territory as in the north, or if the country will carry out more targeted operations, in a region with a very high population density.

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What's Left Of Gaza: Scenes Of Destruction, Pangs Of Desperation

The information coming out of the Palestinian enclave is scarce but undoubtedly grim. An Italian reporter from across the border gathers information from inside Gaza amid a fragile and inevitably temporary ceasefire.

SDEROT – When we ask Sister Nabila Saleh to describe the situation in Gaza, she responds by sending ten photos: images of rubble, destruction, and desolation. They suggest that the point of no return has long been surpassed.

Sister Nabila is of Egyptian origin and spends her days in the parish of the Holy Family in Gaza City, where all of the remaining Christian community is sheltering.

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Communication is challenging; on WhatsApp, conversations are impossible, only snippets of written sentences arrive on each side. Still, they suffice in describing the hellish conditions they've been facing for the past seven weeks.

"The situation is very difficult, everything is destroyed, nothing is left," she said. "Living is a challenge, for now, no aid is reaching us, there is only one supermarket with some basic supplies."

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Hostage Release: The "Psychological Terror" Of Awaiting Your Loved One's Return

Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to exchange 50 Israeli hostages held in Gaza for a four-day pause in fighting and the return of Palestinian prisoners. Orna Dotan, leading a team of therapists tasked with aiding these hostages and their families, takes us inside a uniquely charged personal and political situation.

TEL AVIV — Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to exchange 50 of the hostages held in Gaza for a four-day pause in fighting and the return of 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The families of the hostages, who have lived through the past seven fraught weeks, are now being thrown into a new experience as they await the possible release of their loved ones.

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They are living in a "state of psychological terror," one relative of a hostage said Thursday morning on Israeli radio after learning that there was a delay in the agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Volunteers have urged the media to handle the situation with respect and sensitivity as the next few hours are expected to be "exceedingly stressful" for these families. After six weeks without news of their children, husbands, wives, grandchildren, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents, these hours are the final barrier to embracing their loved ones.

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Inside Camp Jenin, Ground Zero Of The Simmering War In The West Bank

A visit to so-called "Little Gaza," where destruction reigns and children roam with rifles in their hands. But the enemy isn't just the IDF, it is also the Palestinian Authority — and become prime recruiting territory for Hamas.

CAMP JENIN — Two horses stationed at the intersection of dirt roads mark the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp. "Welcome to Little Gaza."

An open-air powder keg, watched by Israeli drones from which Palestinians seek refuge by hoisting dark tents from one building to another. Macabre kites which draw a suffocating cover over the maze of alleyways and streets. There is no open space that isn't marked by debris left from the Israeli army's increasingly frequent raids.

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Raids which happened even before October 7, the day Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians.

We enter Camp Jenin the day after one of the most intense clashes between the IDF and the internal resistance on this site.The Israeli forces penetrated the refugee camp, resulting in 15 casualties. "Why us, why here?" cries a woman sitting on a battered plastic chair while trying to cradle her toddler.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Ranjani Iyer Mohanty

“I Am Palestinian” — When History Calls Us To Stand In Their Shoes, To Say Who We Are

There are certain watershed moments where the world comes together in defense of an idea or a people, or maybe both. A call from afar to stand up in the name of the Palestinian people.

-Essay-

CALGARY — Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film “Spartacus,” starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier, is based on a true story of the leader of a momentous slave rebellion against the Roman empire circa 70 BC.

Near the end of the movie, when the slaves have been captured, the Roman general offers to let them all live if they reveal their leader, the gladiator Spartacus. In a show of solidarity and final act of bravery, the slaves stand up one-by-one, to declare: “I am Spartacus.”

And with that, all are crucified.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Elias Kassem

As Gaza Gets More Dire, Escalation May Be Iran’s Only Option

Iran this week has reaffirmed its full support for Hamas, issuing new threats to escalate with more attacks like Oct. 7. This came after some in the region had criticized Iran for now joining the fray directly. With the rising rhetoric, Iran can't stay passive forever.

-Analysis-

CAIRO — It was just hours after the deadly October 7 Hamas assault that Iranian leaders sent an effusive congratulatory message to the Palestinian militant group it has long supported with funds and weapons.

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But in the intervening five weeks, Tehran has mostly kept a low profile, and even take some distance from the Hamas attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 and triggered the Israeli military’s assault in Gaza that has killed more than 12,000.

Some even suggested that the Iranian regime was so worried about being drawn directly into a region-wide conflict that it might quietly cut off its support of Hamas.

But now, Tehran is making it clear that escalation is by no means off the table.

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The Endless War
Pierre Haski

Friends, Enemies And Public Opinion: Inside Biden's Middle East Balancing Act

The United States has found itself at the forefront of a conflict that the whole world is following. President Joe Biden faces the pull of public opinion, the threat of Iranian action, and the escalation of the Israeli state.

-OpEd-

PARIS — This past Sunday, for the third time, the U.S. military attacked two sites belonging to pro-Iranian groups on Syrian territory. It was in response to missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and northeastern Syria.

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Since Oct. 7, the U.S. military has also intercepted missile launches toward Israel from Yemen by the Houthi rebels. This military activism deserves attention because never before, during previous conflicts in Gaza, have the United States played such an active role. What is different this time, and what is Washington's objective?

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Israel
Beesan Kassab, Noor Swirki and Omar Mousa

Bombs, "Humanitarian" Pause, More Bombs: Journey With Gazans Uprooted By Israel's War

After last Thursday's announcement of daily, four-hour humanitarian pauses in the northern part of Gaza, masses of Palestinians fled southward. But the journey is anything but safe and easy.

KHAN YOUNIS — “The road is difficult. We suffered a lot. It’s all walking and hardships,” says a 60-year-old woman describing her recent journey from northern Gaza to Khan Younis in the south of the strip.

The woman, who is suffering from kidney disease, says that she and her children, along with others who have been displaced by Israel’s relentless bombing of civilians in Gaza, were shelled four times as they moved south. “We started running. What else could we do?” she says.

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But not everyone was able to outrun the Occupation’s strikes. Several people were killed and injured during the journey southward, she tells Mada Masr.

The woman and many others moved from northern Gaza after the White House announced on Thursday a daily, four-hour humanitarian pause in the northern part of the strip, to which Israel had pledged to uphold.

The Israeli occupation spokesperson Avichay Adraee, announced yesterday through his account on X that the Israeli military will allow the displaced to move to the south via the Salah al-Din road east of Gaza between 10 am and 4 pm.

However, the people of northern Gaza who moved within that time period tell Mada Masr they continued to face shelling along the supposed “humanitarian corridors” and in the south, which Israel has said will be a civilian refuge for those who leave “Hamas strongholds” in the north.

Palestinian Photographic Society Photojournalist Mohamed Abu al-Subh who, like other journalists and photographers, staying at the Shifa Hospital, tells Mada Masr: “The Occupation informed us to evacuate to the south, and we chose not to, but as fate would have it, we were forced [to move] by the shelling on Shifa Hospital Thursday and Friday.”

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Mykhailo Dubynyanskyi

Freedom Fighters? A Ukrainian Lesson For Israel From The Algerian Revolution

Public sympathy for Hamas terrorists has precedents. Algeria's liberation in the 1960s from French colonial rule is viewed by history as a wholly just cause, despite horrific attacks against civilians. What does the analogy tell us about Israel's current situation?

-Analysis-

KYIV — As of one month ago, Ukraine is no longer the only major conflict on the global stage. The world found itself divided between those who sympathize with and those who criticize the actions of the state of Israel.

In Ukraine, there is substantial support for Israel, with many viewing the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a struggle between civilization and barbarism. The horrific killings of Israeli men, women, children and the elderly on October 7 are considered an unforgivable crime, like so many suffered recently by Ukrainians.

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The rest of the world, instead, has a myriad of differing perspectives. From certain left-wing activists in the West to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we hear references to Hamas as a "liberation organization."

Yes, this is public sympathy for terrorists, but it has historical precedents.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Prem Shankar Jha*

India, That (Imperfect) Template For A Two-State Solution

At the moment, a two-state solution to end the conflict between Israel and Palestine seems impossible. But should a miracle occur, there is one example that, although not perfect, could serve as a model to build a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural federation: the ethno-federal democracy of India.

-Analysis-

NEW DELHI — In a televised news conference on October 28, Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had opened a “new phase” in the war by sending ground forces into Gaza and expanding attacks from the ground, air and sea. It’s “very clear objective” he said, was destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. A past master at depicting every Israeli act of oppression as defense, he linked Hamas’s October 7 attack to the Holocaust and roared ,“We always said, ‘Never again’. Never again is now.”

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USA
Alberto Simoni

Blinken's Faceless Diplomacy — A Secret Weapon For Post-War Peace?

Reserved, not accustomed to the spotlight, capable of taking a step back and not overshadowing the president. In this time of crisis, Antony Blinken navigates geopolitics with the president's full trust.

-Analysis-

WASHINGTON — When he was Secretary of State, Colin Powell was famously reluctant to leave his office on the seventh floor of the Truman Building. In contrast, John Kerry had such a passion for traveling that he took 108 trips during his four years as the head of U.S. diplomacy.

Antony Blinken is clearly following in Kerry's footsteps. His shuttle diplomacy, with which he is trying to defuse the conflict in the Middle East — preventing it from spreading, protecting civilians, and projecting American leadership in the region — has so far tallied for 73 foreign stops.

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On Wednesday, he laid out his post-war vision of a united Palestinian state that connects Gaza and the West Bank. Earlier in the week, when reporters asked him if he had really achieved anything from his endless chain of meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Arab leaders and others, he qualified the current situation as a "work in progress"

It's a low-profile, cautious, and prudent expression for a reserved man, not used to the limelight, capable of taking a step back and not overshadowing the president.

Qualities for many, limitations for others.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War
Daniela Padoan

Why Hamas Aren't Nazis — Yet Israel's War On Gaza May Be Genocide

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials have referred to Hamas militants as "the new Nazis." But as horrific as the Oct. 7 massacre was, what does it really mean to make such a comparison 80 years after the Holocaust? And how can we rightly describe what's happening in Gaza?

Updated Nov. 8, 2023 at 5:35 p.m.

-OpEd-

TURIN — In these days of horror, we've seen dangerous equivalences, half-truths and syllogisms continue to emerge: between Israelis and Jews, between Palestinians and Hamas, between entities at "war."

The conversation makes it seem that there are two states with symmetrical power. Instead, on one side, there is a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization with both a political and a military wing; on the other, a democratic state — although it has elements in the majority that advocate for a mono-ethnic and supremacist society — equipped with a nuclear arsenal and one of the most powerful armies in the world.

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And in the middle? Civilians violated, massacred, and taken hostage in the horrific massacre of Oct. 7. Civilians trapped and torn apart in Gaza under a month-long siege and bombardment.

And then we also have Israeli civilians led into war and ideological radicalization by a government that recklessly exploits that most unhealable wound of the Holocaust.

On Oct. 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to Hamas militants as "the new Nazis." On Oct. 24, he drew a comparison between Jewish children hiding in attics to escape terrorists and Anne Frank. On the same day, he likened the massacre on Oct. 7 to the Babij Yar massacre carried out in 1941 by the Einsatzgruppen, the SS operational units responsible for extermination. In the systematic elimination of Jews in Kyiv, they deceitfully gathered 33,771 men and women, forced them to descend into a ravine, lie down on top of the bodies of those who were already dead or dying, and then shot them.

The "Nazification" of opponents, or the "reductio ad Hitlerum," to use the expression coined in the 1950s by the German-Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss, who fled Nazi Germany in 1938, is a symbolic strategy that has been abused for decades to discredit one's adversary.

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