Tag: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Protests erupt across the Middle East after strike on Gaza hospital kills hundreds

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Within hours after a blast was said to have killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital, protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan, venting fury at their leaders for failing to stop the carnage.

A summit planned in Jordan on Wednesday between U.S. President Joe Biden, Jordan‘s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was canceled after Abbas withdrew in protest.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spent much of the past week meeting with Arab leaders to try to ease tensions, but those efforts are now in doubt following the hospital blast. The raw nerve of decades of Palestinian suffering, left exposed by U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states, is throbbing once again, threatening broader unrest.

“This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster,” warned Abdullah, who is among the closest Western allies in the Mideast.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the hospital blast. Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Biden, speaking in Tel Aviv, said the blast appeared to have been caused “by the other team,” not Israel.

Read moreBiden says US ‘data’ shows Israel not responsible for Gaza hospital strike

But there was no doubt among the Arab protesters who gathered in several countries late Tuesday to condemn what they saw as an Israeli atrocity.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has been under lockdown since a bloody Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants ignited the war, protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces and called for the overthrow of Abbas.

Israel and the West have long viewed Abbas as a partner in reducing tensions, but his Palestinian Authority is widely seen by Palestinians as a corrupt and autocratic accomplice to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.

Jordan, long considered a bastion of stability in the region, has seen mass protests in recent days. Late Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to storm the Israeli Embassy.

“They are all normalizing Arab rulers, none of them are free, the free ones are all dead!” one protester shouted. “Arab countries are unable to do anything!”

Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, in the late 1970s. Jordan followed in 1994. 

Thousands of students rallied at Egyptian universities on Wednesday to condemn Israeli strikes on Gaza. Protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities chanted “Death to Israel” and “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Al-Aqsa,” referring to a contested Jerusalem holy site. A smaller protest was held near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday.

Such protests are rare in Egypt, where authorities have clamped down on dissent for over a decade. But fears that Israel could push Gaza’s 2.3 million residents into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and soaring consumer prices due to runaway inflation, could prove a volatile mix in the country, where a popular uprising toppled a U.S.-backed autocrat in 2011.

Protests also erupted in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has traded fire with Israeli forces at the border, threatening to enter the war with its massive arsenal of rockets. Hundreds of protesters clashed with Lebanese security forces on Wednesday near the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, where riot police lobbed dozens of tear gas cannisters and fired water cannons to disperse demonstrators.

Protests have also been held in Morocco and Bahrain, two countries that forged diplomatic ties with Israel three years ago as part of the Abraham Accords.

“The Arab street has a voice. That voice may have been ignored in the past by governments in the region and the West … but they cannot do this anymore,” said Badr al-Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University. “People are on fire.”

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, the regional outlook seemed far different.

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that the Abraham Accords, in which four Arab states normalized relations with Israel in 2020, were a “pivot of history” that “heralded the dawn of a new age of peace.”

He said Israel was “at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough” – a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration had been focused on in recent months.

The Abraham Accords, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, were reached with autocratic leaders willing to set aside the Palestinian issue in order to secure their own benefits from the U.S. The UAE hoped for advanced fighter jets. Morocco won U.S. support for its claim to Western Sahara, and Sudan’s ruling military junta got longstanding U.S. sanctions lifted.

Saudi Arabia had asked for a U.S. defense pact and aid in establishing a civilian nuclear program, as well as a substantial concession to the Palestinians that the Saudis have yet to publicly spell out. 

Shimrit Meir, who served as a diplomatic adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said “time will tell” what impact the war will have on normalization efforts.

“In the short term, they will suffer, especially the hope for a breakthrough” with Saudi Arabia, she said. “In the longer run, Israel’s appeal and value to these countries comes from its military strength. Therefore, the need for it to restore its deterrence is above any other considerations.”

Despite all the high-level diplomacy, ordinary Arabs and Muslims still express strong solidarity with the Palestinian cause. During last year’s World Cup soccer tournament, for example, Palestinian flags were waved in abundance even though the national team did not compete.

The recent devastation in Gaza has stirred those sentiments again.

“No Arab government is able to extend its hand to Israel amid its aggression on the Palestinians,” said Ammar Ali Hassan, an Egyptian political scientist. 

“The Arab peoples won’t accept such a move. Even the rulers wouldn’t benefit from such ties at this time.”

(AP)

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Israel’s Negev Bedouins, forgotten victims of the Hamas attack, rally to provide aid

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From our special correspondent in Hura, Israel – The victims of the October 7 Hamas attack included at least 19 members of the Negev Bedouin Arab community, both civilians and members of the Israeli armed forces. The loss has prompted community volunteers to provide aid to a minority that has often suffered state discrimination, as well as calls for a return to peace negotiations to end the deadly cycle of violence.

Mazen Abu Siam’s face furrows with worry lines as he recalls the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and its deadly toll on his community.

“Fortunately, it happened on a Saturday, the Sabbath. If the attack happened during the week, there would have been many more Bedouin victims in the kibbutz, perhaps even dozens. This is unprecedented in our history,” explains Siam.

The Hamas attack inflicted a heavy toll on the Negev Bedouin Arabs, an ancient, traditionally pastoralist nomadic people now settled mostly in Israel’s southern Negev desert. Twelve members of Siam’s community were killed, seven are currently being held hostage and dozens more were injured in Saturday’s attack.

Read more‘Bring my baby back alive’: Families of Israeli hostages cling to hope

“The first rocket fired by Hamas fell here, in Hura. It killed a 5-year-old boy. Another killed four children two kilometres away, wounding the rest of the family. The third killed a woman and her grandmother,” says Siam, reclining on embroidered cushions in a Bedouin tent propped by a modern metal structure seemingly at odds with the traditional interiors.

His quiet recounting of death and hostage tolls is suddenly cut short by the deafening roar of F-16 fighter jets overhead. The veterinarian and Bedouin activist, who is also a member of the municipal council of the nearby town of Rahat (population 80,000), barely raises an eyebrow. The Gaza Strip is barely 40 kilometres away. He’s grown accustomed to the sounds of war.

‘Unrecognised’ Bedouin settlements

The Negev Bedouins were particularly vulnerable to the Hamas attack, according to Siam. “These people were living in makeshift houses. They have no shelter to protect themselves, nowhere to run. Unlike our towns, they have no sirens to alert them when rockets are fired. So, they don’t even know that an attack is taking place,” he explains.

Israel’s Negev Bedouin Arabs have long suffered state discrimination, according to human rights groups. Since the 1970s, they have been pushed out of and denied access to their pastoral lands and crammed into settlements, many of which are officially “unrecognised” and subject to evictions, unlike those built by Jewish citizens, according to Human Rights Watch.

Many of the illegal settlements, which are built with whatever materials are at hand, do not have access to running water or electricity. Residents rely on solar energy in the absence of state-provided electricity.

“Bedouins are an integral part of Israeli society. Many work in agriculture, particularly on kibbutzim, but also in construction, technology, medicine, justice… But if you live in an unrecognised place, you don’t have the same rights as others,” says Siam, who is campaigning for Bedouin access to basic services.

Family room turned makeshift warehouse

The deadly Hamas attack has galvanised volunteers and community leaders. “Faced with the urgency of the situation, we committed ourselves to helping the poorest people in the community,” explains Siam.

Community volunteers include residents like Farhan Abu Riach, who spearheaded a private humanitarian initiative, transforming part of his house into a makeshift warehouse.

Under bright neon lights, Riach’s children are hard at work securing cardboard cartons with tape and filling the boxes with packets of flour, chickpeas, infant milk powder, stuffed toys … the donations are varied. “We want to show these people, who are the most deprived in socioeconomic terms, that we haven’t forgotten them,” says Riach.

Farhan Abu Riach and his children fill cartons with humanitarian aid for Bedouin community recipients on October 17, 2023. Š Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

All the donations come from Jewish friends in Tel Aviv. In this arid region of southern Israel, this is not a new phenomenon. “We should all be united and work together to find long-term solutions and keep the peace,” says Riach simply.

Message of peace ‘amid the horror’

Oday Samanah, an energetic young man, manages the operation in this town of around 20,000 inhabitants. “Hura is the logistics headquarters. Here, we’re making sure that everyone gets what they need. We’ve set up a special team of volunteers to deal with any emergencies in the community, whether it’s food, shelter or anything else. We also make sure that information from the Israeli army, such as security announcements, are brought to everyone,” he explains.

Mazen Abu Siam and Oday Samanah in Hura, October 16, 2023.
Mazen Abu Siam and Oday Samanah in Hura, October 16, 2023. Š Assiya Hamza FRANCE 24

The young municipal employee, a volunteer on this mission, prefers not to dwell on the horrors of a crisis that has dragged on for decades and hit his community particularly hard. “We’re in the middle of this horror, but I want to convey a message of coexistence and peace. Arabs, Jews. Extremists on both sides want us to fight. We can still live together. I think we have to seize the opportunity of this crisis to be stronger together,” says Samanah.

That message of peace is also hammered home by Siam. “I’m an Arab, a Muslim, an Israeli. I am heartbroken by all the violence I have seen on both sides. We must never attack women, children, those who are not involved in a conflict. On either side. War is never the solution to anything. We need to talk to each other to find solutions,” he says.

Rahat, a southern Israeli town of around 80,000 residents, on October 16, 2023.
Rahat, a southern Israeli town of around 80,000 residents, on October 16, 2023. Š Assiya Hamza FRANCE 24

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Druze, Circassians, people of different faiths have always coexisted in this ancient land, notes the activist. “We will continue to live side by side. This is not a religious war. Only the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah want to destroy the State of Israel. The Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip, have suffered a great deal. With each escalation of violence, their living conditions have worsened, even though they have been issued many work permits. Most Gazans want to live in peace. No one wants to grow up under bombs,” he says.

For the Negev Bedouin Arabs, it’s impossible to pick a side between their Jewish and Palestinian brothers. Like many in the community, Siam has family and commercial ties with the Palestinians of the West Bank.

“The situation is different in Gaza, which is under blockade. We’re not allowed to go there as Israeli Arabs, and we’re attacked like any other Israeli,” says Siam, noting that authorities in Israel and Gaza have never entered into “negotiations” despite several eruptions of violence over the past few years.

For this pacifist, dialogue is essential for breaking the cycle of violence. “The world has looked the other way for far too long. I hope that the United States, China, Europe… everyone tries to find a long-term solution,” he says. “The Palestinian people must be free in their country and obtain rights. Stop fighting and negotiate.”

This is a translation of the original in French.

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Former Israeli security chief Ami Ayalon: ‘The military can defend us; it cannot secure us’

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Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Saturday has triggered outright war between Israel and Palestine, with levels of violence not seen in decades. FRANCE 24 spoke to Ami Ayalon, the former director of Israel’s national security service Shin Bet, to discuss what is happening on the ground and how the conflict may evolve.

A new episode of heightened violence began in Israel and Palestine this week with an attack by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Israel and Israeli retaliation in Gaza that has seen a combined death toll climb into the thousands. 

In Israel and around the world, many were shocked by both the extreme brutality of Hamas’s attack and the fact that national intelligence and security services did not foresee the intervention, which saw hundreds of fighters enter Israel by land, sea and air. 

The violence has been compounded by Israel’s response in Gaza; the Palestinian enclave has so far been hit with 6,000 bombs, the Israeli army said on Thursday, and supplies of electricity, gas and water have been cut off. 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to destroy Hamas, and it is widely expected the Israeli military will soon begin a ground offensive in the Palestinian territory. There are also fears that rising tensions could spread into the wider region.

FRANCE 24 spoke to the former director of Israeli national security service Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, to discuss Israel’s response to the attack, military action in Gaza and prospects for a regional conflict. 

Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas in the wake of Saturday’s attack. Do you think that’s a good security strategy? And is it possible? 

Keeping Hamas on the other side of the border is not acceptable. We have to destroy the military capability of Hamas. Today, I see that this is the only way.  

But when we say that our war is against Hamas, we should add it is not against the Palestinian people, and Israel is not saying that. Our government does not recognise the Palestinians as a people.  

As long as there is conflict, we will not come to an agreement, and we will not see stability.

We should be ready to speak to any Palestinian leader who accepts Israel’s existence as a state and to start to negotiate on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative.  

We have to get rid of the political and military power of Hamas, and it will be very, very violent. But what next? Next, Israel should say it doesn’t want to control Palestinians anymore. We have to start to revive the concept of two states, side-by-side. 

This is my dream, but I understand that the present government and probably the future government will not accept it. I’m 78 years old now. Probably it will not happen in my lifetime, but we have to start. What we see around us is a horror but, in every conflict, there is an opportunity.  

How risky is the ground offensive that Israel seems to be preparing for in Gaza? 

Very risky. Many people will die. Many Israeli soldiers and many more Palestinians, but we do not have another option. The other option – that Hamas goes on living on the other side of the border – is unacceptable.  

Most of the directors of Shin Bet are responsible for advising the government on terror and, for years, we said Israel cannot speak to Hamas. It is a fundamental radical organisation that does not approve Israel’s existence as a state, and it will do everything in order to destroy us.  

[The Hamas attack] was a wake-up call that was so painful, I don’t have the words in English or Hebrew to describe the feelings in Israel now. 

Israel could have done something [different] earlier. We could have tried to empower the Palestinian Authority and to decrease the power of Hamas, but we did the opposite.  

Read moreGaza braces for ground offensive, but can Israel achieve its objectives?

Speaking about the feeling in Israel now, it has been reported that there were Israeli intelligence and security failures that allowed the Hamas attack to happen. How confident can Israelis feel that the same kind of attack isn’t going to happen again?  

There is a difference between defence and security.  

Defence is something that you can measure. Israel wanted to achieve more defence against attacking missiles, so we built the Iron Dome. We put in money, had great minds to develop this technology and we can measure the input and output. It gives us a level of defence of about 95 to 97 percent against attacking missiles. 

When it comes to security, it’s totally different because security is what you feel. The answer to security comes from culture. It’s the leaders’ role to create confidence and to give a sense of security to the people.  

Israel is defended more than any other state as a whole, but the Jewish people do not feel secure. If you ask why, some people start to speak about 2,000 years ago when the Second Jewish Temple was destroyed [by the Romans], some talk about the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust or history with the Arabs…  

What we do not understand is that … the military will never give us security. The military can defend us; it cannot secure us. And in our public debate, we do not understand the difference.  

What do you make of the reports that Israel ignored advanced security warnings from Egypt and early reports on the ground that this large-scale attack was about to happen? 

It is clear that our political policy [towards Palestine] was totally wrong and that there were intelligence and operational failures. 

It’s identical to what happened before the Yom Kippur War. It was clear that we were going to war, we had a peace offer on the table, and we were not ready to discuss it. (Editor’s note: In the lead-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli intelligence dismissed the movement of Egyptian and Syrian troops near the border prior to a surprise attack coordinated by the two states. The war was part of an ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict during which Israel initially rejected an Egyptian peace deal – the first publicly offered to Israel by an Arab government)

Read moreFrom 1947 to 2023: Retracing the complex, tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict

But, if somebody tells you tomorrow you will be attacked by Hamas but all your intelligence officers are telling you that there are no signs, you will listen to all the experts around you. You want so much to see it as true.  

In these [security] meetings, people tend not to ask questions. It’s against the culture of the organisation.  

There is this myth that Israel is invincible due to the strength of its intelligence and security services. Is that idea now dead? 

It’s damaged, for sure. It can be fixed, but it will take a lot of time. 

Deterrence is the major factor in Israel’s defence, and we are losing our deterrence. Until now everybody was afraid of Israel, and this was a great asset. When we lose our deterrence, it presents a major, major threat because we live in a very dangerous region which does not forgive weakness. 

Israel is also not doing enough in the region. We speak to all our neighbours in the language of the military and they see us as a military power, but we need to speak two languages; military and diplomacy.  

We have to fight the military wing of Hamas. And we have to speak with anybody who accepts us, immediately. And we are only doing the first part. 

We have to communicate to our neighbours that we are a military and diplomatic state, and it’s up to them to choose which language they prefer.  

Israel now says it’s at war. Is it inevitable that this war is going to include neighbouring countries like Lebanon and Iran? Is Israel ready for a regional conflict? 

I have no idea. I think that it depends on whether Israel makes clear to our neighbours and to the international community that we do not have any intention to conquer Gaza, to occupy Gaza, or to build settlements in Gaza, [as per] the Arab Peace Initiative. 

What you see today is a military operation with a very specific goal to destroy Hamas’s military wing, and nobody knows where it will lead. It will cause many casualties on both sides, and the other risk is that it will spread to Hezbollah. We have to assume that we will see more violence in the West Bank.  

At this moment, we need to tell the Saudis and all our neighbours that we accept, after 21 years, the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative and will negotiate on a future two-state solution. That would create an immediate impact on the spread of violence. 

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Mohammed Deif, the elusive architect of Hamas’s attack on Israel

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Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, organised the deadly assault on Israel over the weekend. The attack plunging Israel and Gaza into a new war brings to the forefront a little-known character who has managed to elude Israel’s intelligence services for over 30 years.

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4 min

Mohammed Deif has been on Israel‘s ‘most wanted’ list for nearly three decades. The leader of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, is unlikely to lose the designation anytime soon.

Deif is behind the military operation launched from the Gaza Strip that caught Israel off guard on Saturday, October 7. After intense fighting that caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war on Hamas, Deif, perhaps more than ever, is in Tel Aviv’s crosshairs.

As Deif’s bounty rises, his star in Gaza is expected to rise too. His “prestige” was already strong, says Omri Brinner, an Israel and Middle East analyst at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona (ITSS). “But with this operation – the most successful in the history of Palestinian resistance – his legacy will live forever. He can fail now, Israel can assassinate him now: his legacy will outlast him.”

‘Nine lives’

As someone who has escaped multiple assassination attempts, Deif is the “ultimate survivor of Palestinian resistance”, says Brinner. His ability to evade Israeli intelligence services has earned him the nickname “the man with nine lives”.

Considered an international terrorist by the United States since 2015, Deif has represented a direct and constant threat to the internal security of Israel for over 30 years. “Militancy against Israel is a field with low life expectancy. It’s quite remarkable that he has been able to survive so long. He is a long-lasting stain on Israel’s reputation of taking down designated targets,” says Jacob Eriksson, a specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of York.

The trick to survival lies in remaining hidden. The only official photo of Deif in circulation is over twenty years old. However, he is far from unscathed. Deif is said to have lost his sight, one arm, and one leg after an Israeli attack in 2006.

The only known photo of Mohammed Deif, taken sometime around the year 2000 in an unknown location. Handout file photo, AFP

His real name is also unknown, although several media outlets suggest it is Mohammed al-Masri. “Deif” is, in fact, an Arabic moniker that translates literally to “guest”. “It’s a reference to the fact he doesn’t stay more than one night in the same place to avoid being caught by Israel,” explains Eriksson.

Other details about Deif’s life are scarce. Deif was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza in the 1960s, according to an Israeli intelligence official who spoke with the Financial Times.

In 2014, the Washington Post reported that Deif studied at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he frequented members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas would later become an offshoot.

Attack from both above and below

The future architect of Hamas’s military operations joined the Islamist organisation in the late 1980s with the help of Yahya Ayyash – known as “the Engineer” – one of Hamas’s main explosives experts with whom “Deif was very close”, according to Eriksson.

After orchestrating suicide bombing attacks in the 1990s, Deif became increasingly important within Hamas after Ayyash’s assassination by Israeli intelligence services in 1996. He was appointed head of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades in 2002.

One of his early achievements as a leader was to apply lessons from the second intifada in the early 2000s. He masterminded the construction of underground tunnels allowing Hamas fighters to launch incursions into Israeli territory from Gaza. He also emphasised the use of rockets as extensively as possible.

“In response to Israel’s fortifying the border with walls, he developed Hamas’s ‘below and above strategy’, meaning digging tunnels for Hamas militants to go into Israel and sending rockets,” explains Brinner. 

His modus operandi has “always been to directly hit Israeli territory by any means possible to make it pay the highest price for its treatment of the population in Gaza”, notes Eriksson.

Deif’s ideology is about making any purely political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible, says Brinner. “His philosophy is about a military solution to the conflict.” It’s no coincidence, Brinner adds, that Deif organised a major campaign of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s, shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords.

A matter of prestige

This reputation for using purely military means also partly explains “why he enjoys unparalleled popularity among the Gaza population”, says Brinner. In 2014, in a poll conducted by a Palestinian news site, “Deif was voted more popular than Khaled Meshal, the overall leader of Hamas, and Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s top political leader in Gaza – both highly visible personalities and known to every Palestinian,” reported the Washington Post.

“He is a military leader, so he is immune to critiques of how Hamas has handled the humanitarian and social aspects of Gaza’s administration,” says Eriksson.

“He is also the only one who lives in Gaza and has educated his children there,” adds Brinner. This is significant from the perspective of Gaza residents, who accuse Haniyeh of leading Hamas from a “luxury hotel in Qatar”.

Deif’s personality and the respect he inspires in Gaza can also partly explain how the ambitious attack succeeded despite the Israeli intelligence services’ widely recognised effectiveness. “The fact that Hamas planned this operation for a year – according to the latest estimations – without any information leaking speaks to the loyalty the select few who were involved in the planning of the operation have to Deif,” says Brinner.

This loyalty has already resulted in the deaths of more than 1000 Israelis and 830 Palestinians since the start of the attack on Saturday.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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‘No place is safe’ in Gaza as Israel lays siege to Hamas-held enclave

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Israel laid “total siege” to the Gaza Strip on Monday, vowing to cut off food, water and electricity supplies to the impoverished enclave as it pounded the Hamas-ruled territory in retaliation for a brazen and bloody incursion that caught Israel’s vaunted security apparatus completely off guard.

Two days after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack from Gaza, killing hundreds of Israelis and abducting scores more, the Israeli army said it had largely regained control of southern settlements close to the Gaza Strip and moved to tighten the noose around the Palestinian enclave.

Tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the border fence that Hamas militants poured through early on Saturday, while the military summoned 300,000 reservists – portending greater fighting ahead and a possible ground offensive into Gaza.

“The price the Gaza Strip will pay will be a very heavy one that will change reality for generations,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said while visiting one of the towns that had been attacked by Hamas. He ordered a “total siege” on Gaza, a day after his government formally declared war on the Hamas militant group that has ruled the enclave since 2007.

“No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Gallant said in a video message in Hebrew. “We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly.”

The ominous words heralded a looming humanitarian crisis in the overcrowded and impoverished territory of 2.3 million people that borders Israel and Egypt, both of which have imposed various levels of blockade since Hamas’s takeover 16 years ago.

“The Gaza Strip has already been facing a severe shortage of electricity, as well as scarcity of water, fuel, and food supplies,” said Gaza-based Bader Alzaharna, a Palestinian researcher and fundraising officer at the Gaza-based think tank Pal-Think for Strategic Studies. “Now the humanitarian situation is clearly expected to get a lot worse.”

‘Total war’

In recent years Israel has provided limited electricity to Gaza and allowed the import of food, fuel and some consumer goods, while heavily restricting travel in and out. Israel’s siege means that Gaza will be almost entirely dependent on its crossing into neighbouring Egypt at Rafah, where cargo capacities are lower than other crossings into Israel.

An Egyptian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP on Monday that more than two tons of medical supplies from the Egyptian Red Crescent had been sent to Gaza and that efforts were underway to organise food and other deliveries, though the question of allowing in fuel was not yet decided.

The trickle of aid through the border with Egypt is unlikely to make up for a complete blockade along the Israeli border. As FRANCE 24’s Jerusalem correspondent Irris Makler warned, Israel’s total siege of the enclave could lead to a “massive humanitarian crisis within a matter of days”.

“The (Israeli) defence minister has made it quite plain, this is total war,” Makler explained. “He’s stopping all the things that civilians need to live: water, power, food, fuel – and power also means water in the Gaza Strip, because they don’t have much fresh water themselves.”


Speaking on FRANCE 24, retired Israeli general Giora Eiland, a former head of the country’s National Security Council, argued that “total war” was necessary to prevent future attacks. 

“We have to completely eliminate the threat of Hamas, and the only way we can achieve this is by using all the aggressive measures that we have – including, if needed, to create a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza, because this kind of pressure might be the most effective one,” Eiland said, claiming Hamas’s continued control of the Gaza Strip meant the local population supported the Islamist group – and, consequently, “preferred to fight and die”. 

‘Send Gaza back into the Stone Age’

The vehemence of the Israeli response is indicative the scale of the shock caused by Hamas’s brazen attack, which brought carnage to the streets of Israeli towns and villages on a scale previously unseen while also exposing glaring gaps in the country’s vaunted intelligence and security apparatus.

“Israel has suffered an enormous cataclysm, and its response will be uncompromising,” said Jerusalem-based journalist Noga Tamopolsky. “This is a historic catastrophe in terms of Israeli national security – and, ultimately, an even worse catastrophe for the inhabitants of Gaza.”

Read moreHamas surprise attack a ‘historic failure’ for Israeli intelligence services

Reflecting the mood among parts of the Israeli right, whose most hard-line segments dominate the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative daily Israel Hayom wrote on Monday that the time had come to “send Gaza back into the Stone Age”.

“Israel is both humiliated and angry and we’re seeing more wide-ranging air strikes than seen in previous exchanges with Hamas,” said FRANCE 24’s Makler. “We have heard that the strikes are aimed at Hamas leaders, both military and political, but we’ve also heard from people on the ground that they seem to be quite indiscriminate, targeting tall buildings and mosques, and intensifying all the time.”

‘No place is a safe place’

In a statement on Monday afternoon, the Israeli Air Force said it dropped some 2,000 munitions and more than 1,000 tons of bombs on Gaza in the last 20 hours. Targets included three rocket launchers directed at Israel, a mosque where militants were operating and 21 high-rise buildings that served militant activity, the Air Force added.

Palestinians reported receiving calls and mobile phone audio messages from Israeli security officers telling them to leave areas mainly in the northern and eastern territories of Gaza, and warning that the army would operate there. But civilians have already paid a high price.

In its latest bulletin on Monday, Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed at least 560 people and wounded more than 2,900 in the blockaded enclave since Saturday. The armed wing of Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel that the victims included four Israelis who were taken hostage at the weekend, though the report could not be verified.


The UN said more than 123,000 people have already fled their homes in Gaza, many after Israeli warnings of imminent bombardment, while the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit.

“Our schools give shelter to civilians and should be protected at all times, including during fighting,” said UNRWA’s director of communications Juliette Touma, whose organisation provided food aid to around the half the population of Gaza even before the latest fighting. “What was already a crisis pre-October 7 could turn into a catastrophe for some two million people,” she warned.

“Most people seek refuge in the UNRWA schools across the enclave, but media shows that some schools are even bombed, which is another humanitarian tragedy,” said Alzaharna, replying in text messages from the Palestinian enclave. “No place is a safe place in the Gaza Strip and everyone can be the next.”

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Hostages held in Gaza complicate Israel’s ‘mighty vengeance’ for Hamas incursion

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” against Hamas following its dramatic surprise incursion into the country on Saturday, October 7, all the while emphasising the importance of rescuing the “significant numbers” of hostages now being held. As families mobilise to find their missing loved ones, Israel must balance tough trade-offs. 

In a video circulated on social media, a 25-year-old Chinese-Israeli named Noa is shown being kidnapped by men on motorcycles as she attends the “Tribe of Nova” music festival in southern Israel‘s Negev desert. Since the surprise offensive by Hamas against Israel on Saturday, dozens of videos of this nature have gone viral, causing an international outcry. 

According to Israel, around a thousand members of terrorist group Hamas took part in the large-scale operation of bombings and armed raids. With clashes still ongoing on Monday in several locations, hundreds of deaths and dozens of abductions have already been recorded.

Israeli hostages, including military personnel and “women, children, babies, elderly individuals, and the disabled”, are being held “in significant numbers” in Gaza, acknowledged Netanyahu on Saturday.

On Sunday evening, a senior Hamas official confirmed that the group was holding over 100 people hostage following the assault on Israel. Al Qassam, Hamas’ armed wing, claimed to be holding “dozens” of Israeli soldiers “sheltered in safe places and resistance tunnels”, including “high-ranking officers”.

The head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad also stated in a televised speech that his group was holding dozens of “Israeli prisoners” in Gaza.


Families without answers

Parents and relatives of the missing held a press conference on Sunday in Tel Aviv, expressing their despair and calling on the government for help.

Like Noa, Merav Leshem Gonen’s daughter was attending the “Tribe of Nova” music festival ten kilometres from the Gaza Strip when it was attacked by armed men. Speaking at the conference, Gonen describes the last time she heard from her daughter, who called her while hiding from the attackers. “I’m on the phone with her and I’m saying ‘we love you’ and ‘it’s ok’,” Gonen says. “I know I’m lying because we don’t have answers.”

According to preliminary reports, about 250 people died during the attack on the music festival while several others were kidnapped by armed men.

For Vincent Lemire, a historian and former director of the French Research Centre in Jerusalem (CRFJ), the events of the weekend mark a turning point for the entire country. “It’s unprecedented in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict,” he says. “The population is completely traumatised.”

Dual and foreign nationals are also among those taken hostage. Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog indicated that American citizens had been taken hostage. According to the Thai foreign ministry, eight Thai labourers were wounded, 12 killed and 11 taken captive. And at least eight French citizens are still missing, “deceased or taken hostage by Hamas”, according to Meyer Habib, an MP representing French citizens abroad, including in Israel.


Several German-Israelis have been also reported kidnapped by Hamas by the German foreign ministry, which did not specify the number of individuals involved.

CNN journalist Anderson Cooper spoke to German-Israeli Ricarda Louk, who says she recognised her daughter unconscious in a car with Palestinian militants in a video online. 

To assist families in their search for loved ones and to try to coordinate information, the Israeli police and civil defence have opened a “command centre for missing persons” in Lod, 15 kilometres southeast of Tel Aviv. 

Bargaining chips

The abduction of soldiers and civilians complicates the IDF’s retaliation, says Héloïse Fayet, a Middle East specialist at the French Institute of Foreign Relations (IFRI).

“We know that Israel places a high value on its hostages,” says Fayet, recalling the case of the Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, exchanged in 2011 for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

On Monday, Hamas announced that four “prisoners” had been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza. “Will the government be willing to sacrifice the hundred Israeli or dual nationals as hostages to neutralise the Hamas threat through a large-scale aerial operation?” asks Fayet.

A second option for Israel is to conduct a ground operation in Gaza, but this also involves serious risks, says Lemire. “There will be hundreds of [IDF] casualties because they will have to retake Gaza street by street,” he says.

According to Israeli media, the army has mobilised 300,000 reservists, an unprecedented move in Israel’s history. However, Netanyahu has shown little inclination to conduct ground campaigns in Gaza thus far in his long political career.

“The cruel reality is that Hamas has taken hostages as insurance against Israeli retaliation, especially a massive ground attack, and to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, told Reuters.

Negotiating the release of the hostages is the most likely outcome, says Lemire. “It is currently difficult to see how a far-right government and ministers like Ben Gvir [Minister of National Security] and Smotrich [Minister of Finance] could bear the political cost,” says Lemire. “But from my perspective, it is the most likely option. In the past, Israel has always negotiated to secure the release of its hostages.”

According to estimates, around 4,500 Palestinians are currently being held in Israel, convicted or awaiting trial for “terrorist activities”. “Our detainees in [Israeli] prisons, their freedom is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners,” said Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau in an interview with Al-Jazeera, in anticipation of future negotiations.

 

This article has been translated from the original in French.



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Israel declares war on Hamas after hundreds killed on both sides

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Israel formally declared war on Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas for its surprise attack.

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At least 700 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades — and more than 400 have reportedly been killed in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes pound the territory.

Fighting between Israel’s military and Hamas fighters in southern Israel continued into Sunday in Asheklon and other areas of the south of the country.

The Israeli military evacuated at least five towns close to Gaza and has been scouring them for militants. 

Hamas said that overnight it had continued to send forces and equipment into “a number of locations inside our occupied territories,” referring to Israel. Hamas-linked media reported that the son of Nizar Awadallah, a senior political official, was killed. The Islamic militant group has not reported any senior members being captured, killed or wounded.

And in northern Israel on Sunday there was a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, raising fears of a broader conflict.

The surprise attack on Saturday was the deadliest on Israel in decades. In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast.

The high death toll, multiple captives and slow response to the onslaught pointed to a major intelligence failure and undermined the long-held perception that Israel has eyes and ears everywhere in the small, densely populated territory it has controlled for decades.

The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault, named “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza,  and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.

Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

The fate of the Israeli hostages

The militants took dozens of Israelis back into the coastal Gaza enclave, including women, children and the elderly, whom they will likely try to trade for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. 

Israeli TV news aired a stream of accounts from the relatives of captive or missing Israelis, who wailed and begged for assistance amid a fog of uncertainty surrounding the fate of their loved ones. 

The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said militants in Gaza are holding dozens of Israeli prisoners, including more than 30 held by his group

Ziad Nakhaleh said in a televised speech on Sunday night that the captives will not be released until all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are set free.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group took part in the operation that Hamas carried out Saturday in which hundreds of Israelis were killed.

“The prisoners that are being held are in the tens and I can say that they are much more than that,” said Nakhaleh, who usually lives in Beirut.

He added that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad has more than 30 prisoners and that Israel should acknowledge defeat.

The presence of hostages in Gaza complicates Israel’s response. Hamas officials have said they will seek the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, and Israel has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home.

The military has confirmed that a “substantial” number of Israelis were abducted Saturday without giving an exact figure. 

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US involvement

The Pentagon has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to be ready to assist Israel, two US officials said. The carrier was already in the Mediterranean conducting naval exercises with Italy.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the United States’ newest and most advanced aircraft carrier.

The vessel and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.

The large deployment, which also includes a host of ships and warplanes, underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to deter the conflict from growing.

President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning, the White House said, and told the Israeli prime minister that “additional assistance for the Israeli Defence Forces” is now on the way to Israel.

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There will be more assistance in the coming days, Biden told Netanyahu, according to the White House. It was their second call since the surprise Hamas attack.

Biden and Netanyahu plan to remain in touch, and the two leaders also discussed “ongoing efforts to ensure that no enemies of Israel believe they can or should seek advantage from the current situation.”

Gaza and the West Bank

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Sunday said that 413 Palestinians killed and 2,300 wounded. Eight people were also killed in parts of the West Bank including two each in Ramallah, Jericho and Hebron. A child was killed in Qalqilya, and another person died in Nablus.

The number of wounded in the West Bank governorates stood at more than 60 on Sunday, the ministry said.

In Gaza, residents fled homes near the border to escape Israeli strikes, fleeing deeper inside the territory after warnings in Arabic from the Israeli military.

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The U.N. agency for Palestinians refugees says 74,000 people in Gaza Strip have taken shelter in dozens of its schools following calls from Israel for residents of border areas to evacuate. The number of displaced increased by nearly 50,000 overnight, when about 20,000 first moved into U.N.-operated schools.

UNRWA said Sunday the number is likely to increase amid heavy shelling and airstrikes in different parts of the overpopulated besieged territory of 2 million people.

The agency confirmed that one of its schools was directly hit earlier Sunday and said it suffered severe damage but there were no casualties. Associated Press video shot Sunday showed a large crater in the middle of the Gaza school that sheltered 225 people.

“Schools and other civilian infrastructure, including those sheltering displaced families, must never come under attack,” UNRWA said in a statement.

Much of the population in Gaza was thrown into darkness on Saturday night as Israel cut off electricity and said it would no longer supply power, fuel or other goods to the territory.

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Hamas said it had planned for a long fight.

“We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV.

The fate of foreign nationals

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. is working to verify reports that “several” Americans were killed or are missing.

Three British men were said to either be dead or missing after the Hamas attack on Israel.

Nathanel Young, 20, was killed while serving in the Israel Defensc Forces, his sister, Gaby Shalev, said on Facebook. His death was later confirmed by the Israeli Embassy in London.

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British photographer Danny Darlington, who lived in Berlin, and his German girlfriend, Carolin Bohl, had not been heard from after hiding out in a bunker at kibbutz Nir Oz, according to Sam Pasquesi, who is Bohl’s brother-in-law.

Pasquesi said his family learned later Sunday from a man working at the kibbutz that the bodies of the two had been identified.

Jake Marlow, 26, had been providing security at a music festival near kibbutz Re’im when he called his mother, Lisa, before dawn to say rockets were flying overhead.

He texted her an hour later but that was the last she heard from him, she told Jewish News. The Israeli Embassy in London did not know if Marlowe “is taken hostage or dead or in a hospital,” a spokesperson said.

The U.K. Foreign Office did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the three.

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A French woman in Israel has died “in the context of the terrorist attacks,” France’s foreign ministry said Sunday, without providing details. French teams in Israel and Paris are trying to clarify the situations of several citizens who have not been located, the statement said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry says it has to assume that German citizens are among those kidnapped by Hamas on Saturday. It didn’t say how many people that might be, but said they are all believed also to be Israeli citizens.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said two Ukrainian women had been killed. Both had lived in Israel for a long time, he said without elaborating on the circumstances of their death.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said two Belarusians were injured during the shelling of the city of Ashkelon, and one of them was in serious condition.

Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, said American citizens are among those who were taken captive but gave no details about them, nor about Americans who might have been killed.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was at war and would exact a heavy price from its enemies. His Security Cabinet officially declared the country at war in an announcement on Sunday, saying the decision formally authorizes “the taking of significant military steps.”

The implications of the announcement were not immediately clear. Israel has carried out major military campaigns over the past four decades in Lebanon and Gaza that it portrayed as wars, but without a formal declaration. Hamas leaders have said they are prepared for any further escalation.

A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties. Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” But, he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”

Israel hit more than 800 targets in Gaza so far, its military said, including airstrikes that levelled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner.

Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel

The flare-up on Israel’s northern border also threatened to draw into the battle Hezbollah, a fierce enemy of Israel’s which is backed by Iran and estimated to have tens of thousands of rockets at its disposal. Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets and shells on Sunday at three Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border and Israel’s military fired back using armed drones. Two children were lightly wounded by broken glass on the Lebanese side, according to the nearby Marjayoun Hospital.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military official, told reporters the situation at the northern border was calm after the exchange. But he said fighting was still underway in the south and that there were still hostage situations there.

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He said troops had moved into every community near the Gaza frontier, where they planned to evacuate all civilians and scour the area for militants.

“We will go through every community until we kill every terrorist that is in Israeli territory,” he said. In Gaza, “every terrorist located in a house, all the commanders in houses, will be hit by Israeli fire. That will continue escalating in the coming hours.”

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Defiant Netanyahu vows to press ahead with key vote on contentious judicial reform

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to press ahead with his contentious judicial overhaul, despite unprecedented mass protests at home, growing defections by military reservists and appeals from the U.S. president to put the plan on hold.

Netanyahu’s message, delivered in a prime time address on national television, set the stage for stepped-up street protests in the coming days leading up to a fateful vote expected Monday. Thousands of people marched through central Tel Aviv on Thursday night, while others continued a roughly 70 kilometer (roughly 45 mile) march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu was at times conciliatory during his address, saying he understands the differences of opinion that have bitterly divided the country and offering to seek a compromise with his political opponents.

But he was also defiant, saying his opponents were bent on toppling him and lashing out at the scores of military reservists who say they will stop reporting for duty if the plan is passed. Some have already quit.

“The refusal to serve threatens the security of every citizen of Israel,” he said.

Parliament is expected to vote Monday on a bill that would curtail the Supreme Court’s oversight powers by limiting its ability to strike down decisions it deems “unreasonable.” The reasonability standard is meant as a safeguard to protect against corruption and improper appointments of unqualified people.

The bill is one of several keystone pieces of the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul plan. Netanyahu and his allies — a collection of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties — say the plan is needed to curb what they consider excessive powers of unelected judges.

Critics say the legislation will concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his far-right allies and undermine the country’s system of checks and balance. They also say Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.

The proposal has bitterly divided the Israeli public and attracted appeals from U.S. President Joe Biden for Netanyahu to slow down and forge a broad national consensus before passing any legislation.

After Netanyahu’s speech, opposition leader Yair Lapid urged Netanyahu to defy his coalition allies and halt the legislation.

“This extremist group has no mandate to turn Israel into a messianic and non-democratic state,” Lapid said. “The Netanyahu government is waging a war of attrition against the citizens of Israel.”

Perhaps the biggest threat to the plan are growing calls by military reservists who say they will stop reporting for duty in key units. They include fighter pilots, commandos and cyberwar officers.

Israeli leaders and military commanders have expressed growing alarm, saying the refusals to serve could hurt the country’s security. Reservists, whose service is voluntary, make up the backbone of Israel’s military.

On Thursday, the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency, Nadav Argaman, voiced support for the reservists.

“We need to stop this legislation by any means,” he told the Army Radio station, saying the reservists “are very concerned and fearful for the security of the state of Israel.”

Argaman was appointed head of the Shin Bet by Netanyahu in 2016 and stepped down in 2021.

Netanyahu said the refusals to serve undermined Israel’s democratic institutions, in which the army is subordinate to the government and not the other way around. “If they succeed in carrying out their threats, that is a blow to democracy,” he said.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have joined mass protests against the overhaul since it was proposed in January, and business leaders have said that a weaker judiciary will drive international investors away.

In Tel Aviv, movement leaders staged a “night of resistance,” marching through the city’s streets, beating drums and blaring horns. Police used water cannons to clear protesters from a major highway.

The movement has also begun to shift its focus from Tel Aviv, where weekly demonstrations draw tens of thousands, to Jerusalem, where the parliament is set to vote next week.

Hundreds of protesters packed up rows of small white tents and continued a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, where they plan to camp outside parliament ahead of the vote.

Protesters flocked outside the home of the chairman of the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union. The Histadrut ordered a strike in March, leading Netanyahu to freeze the overhaul. Netanyahu revived the plan last month after talks seeking compromise with opposition lawmakers failed. But the union has yet to authorize another strike.

After Netanyahu’s statement, movement leaders vowed further escalation. “We call on all those who care about Israel’s future as a democracy to take to the streets,” said Josh Drill, a protest spokesman.

Presidents of major Israeli universities said they would hold a strike Sunday to protest the bill, according to reports from Israeli media. Doctors held a two-hour “warning strike” Wednesday to protest the overhaul, which they said would wreak havoc on the healthcare system by granting politicians greater control over public health.

They vowed more severe measures if the bill is voted through.

The judicial overhaul plan was announced shortly after Netanyahu took office as prime minister following November’s parliamentary elections. It was Israel’s fifth election in under four years, with all of the votes serving as a referendum on his leadership while facing legal charges.

Critics say removing the reasonability standard would allow the government to appoint unqualified cronies to important positions without oversight. They also say that it could clear the way for Netanyahu to fire the current attorney general — seen by supporters as a bulwark against the overhaul plan — or appoint legal officials who could ease his way out of the corruption charges he is facing in an ongoing trial.

Netanyahu now heads the country’s most ultranationalist and religiously conservative government in Israel’s 75-year history.

(AP)

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Israel and Islamic Jihad reach cease-fire to end five days of fighting

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Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Gaza Strip agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire late Saturday, ending five days of intense fighting that left 33 Palestinians, including at least 13 civilians, dead. Two people in Israel were killed by rocket fire. 

The cease-fire took effect just after 10 p.m., with a last-minute burst of rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes stretching several minutes past the deadline announced by Egypt.

While the calm brought a sense of relief to Gaza’s more than 2 million people and hundreds of thousands of Israelis who had been confined to bomb shelters in recent days, the agreement did nothing to address the underlying issues that have fueled numerous rounds of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office put out a statement thanking Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi for his efforts to restore calm. Egypt frequently acts as a broker between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The statement quoted Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, as saying that “quiet would be answered with quiet” but that Israel would respond to further threats with “whatever needs to be done.” 

In Gaza, Islamic Jihad spokesman Tareq Selmi said Israel had agreed to halt its policy of targeted strikes on the group’s leaders. “Any stupidity or assassination by the occupation will be met with a response and the Zionist enemy bears the responsibility.” he said.

Tensions could quickly resume next week when Israel holds a contentious march through a main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Still, as the truce took hold, the deafening whooshes of outgoing rockets and booms of Israeli airstrikes was replaced by the honking of cars in Gaza. Streets that had been desolate in recent days quickly teemed with people reveling in the ceasefire, waving Palestinian flags and flashing victory signs from speeding vehicles. Amid the celebration, a fruit vendor used a loudspeaker, enthusiastically promoting his supply of bananas.

The latest violence erupted Tuesday when Israeli airstrikes killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders. Israel said the airstrikes were in response to a heavy burst of rocket fire the previous week and that its attacks have been focused on Islamic Jihad targets. But residents in Gaza said homes of people uninvolved in fighting also had been struck.

At least 10 civilians, including women, young children and uninvolved neighbors were killed in those initial strikes, which drew regional condemnation.

Over the past few days, Israel has conducted more airstrikes, killing other senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroying their command centers and rocket-launching sites. But the airstrikes showed no signs of stopping the rocket fire.

Israel reported over 1,200 launches throughout the fighting, with some rockets reaching as far as the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas. Israel said about a quarter of the rockets were misfired and landed in Gaza, while most of the rest were either intercepted or landed in open areas. But an 80-year-old woman and a Palestinian laborer who was working inside Israel were killed by rocket fire.

It was the latest in a long series of battles between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the seaside territory in 2007.

But the deal was unlikely to deal with many of the causes of the repeated fighting, including Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza, the large arsenals of weapons possessed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim all three areas for a future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but Hamas subsequently overran the territory and expelled forces loyal to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority.

The more powerful Hamas has praised Islamic Jihad’s strikes but remained on the sidelines during the latest round of fighting, limiting the scope of the conflict. As the de facto government held responsible for the abysmal conditions in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Hamas has recently tried to keep a lid on its conflict with Israel. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, a more ideological and unruly militant group wedded to violence, has taken the lead in the past few rounds of fighting with Israel.

In a reminder of the combustible situation in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military raided the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that killed two Palestinians. In a separate incident near the northern city of Jenin, Israeli police said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian assailant who ran toward soldiers wielding a knife.

Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the West Bank under Israel’s most right-wing government in history. Since the start of the year, 111 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press — the highest death toll in some two decades. In that time, 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

The truce could be further tested on Thursday when Israeli nationalists plan their annual “Jerusalem Day” march through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. The march, meant to celebrate Israel’s capture of the Old City and its Jewish holy sites in 1967, is a frequent source of friction and helped spark and 11-day war with Hamas in 2021.

On Saturday, Palestinians ventured out to assess the damage wrought by Israeli warplanes and salvage whatever they could. One man carefully pulled documents out from under the rubble. Another carried away a mattress. 

Four homes in densely populated residential neighborhoods were reduced to dust in the pre-dawn attacks. The Israeli military alleged the targeted homes belonged to or were used by Islamic Jihad militants. The residents denied the army’s claims and said they had no idea why their homes were targeted.

“We have no rocket launching pads at all. This is a residential area,” said Awni Obaid, beside the debris of what was his three-story house in the central town of Deir al-Balah. 

The nearby house of his relative, Jehad Obaid, was also leveled. He had been standing some hundred meters away when his apartment was bombed. 

“I felt like vomiting because of the dust,” he said. “This is extraordinary hatred. They claim they don’t strike at children, but what we see is craziness, destruction.”

(AP)

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Israeli jets and Islamic Jihad in deadly duel in Gaza

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There has been a third day of bloodshed, mourning and intense fighting as the Israeli air force targeted leaders of Islamic Jihad in their homes while Palestinians responded with rocket barrages.

Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip killed two militant commanders on Thursday, while a 70-year-old man was killed by Palestinian rocket fire in the first fatality inside Israel amid the current wave of fighting. The continuing bloodshed, which has left 28 Palestinians dead, came despite Egyptian efforts to broker a ceasefire.

It has been the worst bout of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza in months, with at least 10 civilians — mostly women and children — among the dead. The conflagration, now on its third day, comes at a time of soaring tensions and spiking violence over the past year in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian militants launched unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel throughout the day. One rocket struck an apartment block in the central Israeli city of Rehovot, killing a 70-year-old man, the MADA rescue service said. It said four others were moderately wounded.

Earlier Thursday, the Israeli military pressed ahead with its strikes against the Islamic Jihad militant group and said a senior commander in charge of the group’s rocket launching force, Ali Ghali, was killed when his apartment was hit.

Later in the day, Israel said it killed another Islamic Jihad commander who was meant to replace Ghali in southern Gaza. Islamic Jihad confirmed the man, Ahmed Abu Daqqa, was one of its commanders.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said a total of 28 people have been killed since the fighting erupted. Among the dead were at least nine Islamic Jihad militants, 10 civilians and nine others, including four whom Israel says were killed in failed rocket launches, whose affiliation remained uncertain.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told Israeli Army Radio that two other militants were also killed in the early morning strike, although no group immediately claimed them as members, and that the rest of the building remained intact.

“The apartment was targeted in a very precise way,” Hagari said. “I hope this leads to a reduction, a blow and a disruption of the Islamic Jihad rocket abilities.”

The strikes targeted the top floor of a building in a residential, Qatari-built complex in the southern Gaza Strip. The pre-dawn airstrike in the city of Khan Younis caused damage to three surrounding buildings. The complex, known as Hamad City, consists of several tall buildings and thousands of housing units. The strike created panic among residents, with falling debris and shattered glass littering the streets.

“My children started crying. I did not see anything because of the dust, broken glasses, and debris,” said Abdullah Hemaid, who lives across from the targeted building.

Islamic Jihad said Ghali was a commander in charge of its rocket squad and a member of its armed group’s decision-making body. The group has said it will only ceasefire if Israel agrees to halt targeted killings of its fighters.

The current round of fighting erupted overnight Tuesday when Israel killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders in near-simultaneous airstrikes.

On Wednesday, a state-run Egyptian TV station announced that Egypt, a frequent mediator between the sides, had brokered a ceasefire. But with the violence continuing late Thursday, there was still no breakthrough.

The Israeli military says that in its strikes on some 150 targets, it has zeroed in on militants with what it says are precision strikes. But children, among them a 4-year-old, were also killed.

Hagari, the military spokesman, told Army Radio that a quarter of the rockets launched have fallen in Gaza, killing at least four, including a 10-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds and a 51-year-old man. That claim could not immediately be independently confirmed.

Ceasefire talks in Cairo

Efforts to mediate a ceasefire were still underway Thursday with top Islamic Jihad political bureau member Mohamad al-Hindi arriving in Cairo to discuss details. A delegation of Egyptian mediators also was travelling to Israel, according to Israeli press reports.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that “despite our strenuous efforts, these efforts still have not yielded the desired fruits and results.”

Israeli officials declined to comment.

The initial Israeli airstrikes set off a burst of rocket fire on Wednesday that triggered air-raid sirens throughout southern and central Israel.

The military said more than 500 rockets have been fired toward Israel. It said most were intercepted by Israel’s missile defence system or fell in open areas.

Damage was reported when rockets slammed into buildings that were empty because residents had fled the area. Three buildings in the southern town of Sderot were struck Thursday, officials said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israel says the airstrikes are a response to a barrage of rocket fire launched last week by Islamic Jihad in response to the death of one of its West Bank members from a hunger strike while in Israeli custody.

Israel has come under international criticism for the high civilian toll. In past conflicts, rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes due to the high number of civilian deaths. Israel says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and holds militant groups responsible because they operate in heavily populated residential areas. It also says militants fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli communities.

In signs that both sides were trying to show restraint, Israel has avoided attacks on the ruling Hamas militant group, targeting only the smaller and more militant Islamic Jihad. Hamas, which has much more to lose than Islamic Jihad, also has remained on the sidelines.

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and numerous smaller engagements since the Islamic militant group took control of Gaza in 2007.

The army said that schools would remain closed and restrictions on large gatherings would remain in place in southern Israel until at least Friday. Residents were instructed to stay near bomb shelters.

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged over the past year, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 30-year-old man died after he was shot by Israeli troops in a raid on Wednesday, and that a 66-year-old Palestinian man died after he was shot during a gun battle between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in a refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Thursday.

The Israeli army said it has arrested 25 suspected Islamic Jihad members in West Bank raids in recent days.

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