[RD] War in Gaza News: Pas de Deux

Doesn't the republican voting base also include a sizable bit of people who want the US to stop giving weapons/aid to Israel and get involved indirectly in its wars?
Then again, so does the democrat voting base.

Nope they're dominated by religious fundamentalist who are pro Israel.
 

Almost 100 Gaza food aid lorries violently looted, UN agency says​

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.
Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.
Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.
Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.

Without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen for the two million people depending on humanitarian aid to survive, according to Unrwa.
A UN-backed assessment warned earlier this month that there was “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip”.
It came after Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in the north and the UN said fewer aid lorries had entered Gaza last month than at any time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
Saturday’s looting was first reported by Reuters news agency, which cited an Unrwa official in Gaza as saying that the convoy was instructed by Israeli authorities to "depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route" from Kerem Shalom.
Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry said its security staff killed "more than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks" in an operation carried out in cooperation with "tribal committees", a network of traditional family clans.
Lazzarini said he could not comment on the route when asked at a news conference in Geneva on Monday, but he confirmed the looting and said: “We have been warning a long time ago about the total breakdown of civil order.”
“Until four or five months ago, we still had local capacity, people who were escorting the convoy. This has completely gone, which means we are in an environment where local gangs, local families, are struggling among each other to take control of any business or any activities taking place in the south. It has become an impossible environment to operate in.”
He added that hundreds of people desperate for food had tried to storm the Unrwa-run vocational centre in the southern city of Khan Younis because they thought the aid had been delivered there.
“But the convoys were looted and there was absolutely nothing to take from the warehouses.”
Unrwa put out a separate statement on X that accused Israeli authorities of continuing to “disregard their legal obligations under international law to ensure the population's basic needs are met and to facilitate the safe delivery of aid”.
“Such responsibilities continue when trucks enter the Gaza Strip, until people are reached with essential assistance.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Earlier, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in the Gaza Strip, Cogat, said on X: “With the challenges the UN aid organisations experience in distributing aid, we are working together on various measures that will facilitate the transfer of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gazans in need.”
“For months now, aid has been piling up on the Gazan side, after Israeli inspection, waiting for collection and distribution, and we've been taking many measures to assist with the pick-up of aid,” it added.
Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group has denied.
Last week, a group of 29 non-governmental organisations said in a report that the looting of aid convoys was “a consequence of Israel's targeting of the remaining police forces in Gaza, scarcity of essential goods, lack of routes and closure of most crossing points, and the subsequent desperation of the population amid these dire conditions”.
They cited media reports as saying that “many incidents are taking place close by or in full view of Israeli forces, without them intervening, even when truck drivers asked for assistance”.
Also on Monday, Palestinian authorities said Israeli strikes had killed more than 30 people across Gaza.
At least 17 were reportedly killed when a house was hit near Kamal Adwan hospital in the Beit Lahia Project, in northern Gaza.
The director of Gaza's health ministry cited Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, as saying that the dead were members of the family of one of the hospital’s medics, Dr Hani Badran. A video purportedly showed Dr Badran being comforted on a ward.
The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency meanwhile said its first responders had recovered the bodies of seven people from a home that was struck in the north-west of Gaza City.
Another four people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent inside the Israeli-designated al-Mawasi humanitarian area, in southern Gaza, it added.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 43,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypjd7gepmo
 

He was an IDF officer, but now he says he'd rather go to jail than participate in the Gaza war​

Michael Ofer-Ziv is among over 100 signatories demanding ceasefire and hostage return

This time last year, Michael Ofer-Ziv was halfway through his military work on the war in Gaza. The reservist was called up a week after the devastating Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The 29-year-old says he was torn about whether to serve with the Israel Defence Forces or not. A self-proclaimed leftist, he says he was abroad when the call came, and was hesitant to accept. But emotions among friends and family were running high. His family knew some of the victims killed at the site of the Nova music festival, one of the areas the militants had targeted.

So Ofer-Ziv reported for duty on Oct. 13, 2023, serving as a control officer for the next two months out of Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert in southern Israel, near the border of Gaza.

"As a lefty, I do not believe that military action will solve anything in the long term," he said during an interview with CBC News.

"But it was very clear that in the short term, there was a need to re-establish the border to protect civilians on our side."

However, even during his term, his apprehension toward the military's stated goals for the war remained in the back of his mind. In June, after a break, he officially refused to return — a decision that could mean jail time.

Ofer-Ziv is now among over 100 Israeli servicemen and women who have signed a petition addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, refusing to return to service without an immediate ceasefire deal in Gaza and return of the Israeli hostages who remain there. The letter, which is still collecting signatures, had reached 165 at time of publication.

Conscientious objectors — also called refusers or refuseniks in Israel — reject the mandatory call to service over moral or political grounds, and can face jail time for their actions. Though they remain a minority of the population, the country has seen recent high-profile cases of young refusers.

Netanyahu's office declined to comment to CBC on the letter and on refusers protesting the war in Gaza.

The IDF said in a statement that any narrative suggesting an uptick in refuseniks is "false," and that the cases described are "marginal."

"Since the outbreak of the war, hundreds of thousands of reservists have been called up, some of whom continue to be actively deployed even now."

The tipping point​

Ofer-Ziv was part of the brigade command unit, which controls the movement of troops in the battlefield. He was stationed in a "war room" at Sde Teiman, where he would monitor a portion of the ground operations in Gaza live through screens. He described it as the "cool-headed" team driving the fight on the ground.

(Sde Teiman would later gain infamy, as it was partially converted into a detention camp during the war and faced allegations of IDF soldiers abusing Palestinian detainees. Ofer-Ziv was not involved with the detention camp operations.)

He said he couldn't share too many details of his time there, but said it was an environment where officers were constantly debating where, who and what to strike next. And between those debates and the high-stress environment he was in, compounded by a lack of sleep and separation from his family, Ofer-Ziv says making decisions was difficult.

He also felt that, while troops were never told to target civilians in Gaza, many didn't see the accidental killings of civilians as a big deal.

"The general sentiment is this disregard [for] Palestinian lives: It's not as important of a thing that we should talk about or care about that much," he said.

The thinking was "we should avoid it when we can, but it's not something that we should work really hard to avoid."

Part of what kept Ofer-Ziv in that war room was a belief that a ceasefire deal was imminent. And he believed the presence of someone who was more critical of the war could make an impact on the decisions made.

"I really believe that when I was there, I made a bit of a difference," Ofer-Ziv said. "In many cases, the decision not to fire, I had a part [in] making that decision."

But the tipping point was in December 2023, when the IDF mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in northern Gaza.

"At the time, we already had this concept that the military pressure is killing hostages, rather than making a reality for a deal," he said.

He was given a routine break that month, and by the next month, he had already decided not to return.

Regarding any wrongdoing on the battlefield, the Israeli army told CBC it had referred nearly 2,000 such cases to the General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, an independent body, for review.

No soldiers, no war​


Mattan Helman refused to enlist with the IDF in 2007, and spent over 100 days in jail. Now, as executive director of Refuser.org, he works to support fellow refusers and their efforts to resist Israeli military action in the broader Middle East.

An international organization, Refuser.org funds refusers' legal fees, and also supports their press and social media campaigns about war resistance.

"This kind of initiative of soldiers is resistance," he told CBC News. "The work cannot go on without soldiers to continue the war."

Though they are a minority, refuser movements have gained some traction in the past. Yesh Gvul — which roughly translates to "There is a limit" — is one of them, created at the start of the 1982 Lebanon War by Israeli veterans who refused to serve in the military. Nearly 3,000 reservists signed the petition against invading Lebanon, according to its website.

Shimri Zameret, the chair of Refuser.org's board who has also spent time in jail for refusing to serve, says it's difficult to reject military service in Israeli society.

Though there are exemptions, most Israeli citizens are required to serve in the military once they turn 18 — men for at least 32 months and women at least 24. After that, they're typically required to be part of the reserve force, where they're not always on active duty but can be called up for emergencies.

It's not just the legal requirement that makes refusing difficult, however. Many refuseniks keep it to themselves, Zameret says, because they fear reprisal from their family and friends, as serving in the military is an important part of Israeli society.

"Most of them don't understand that they're doing atrocities because they are told by their societies, they are socialized to believe that what they're doing is protecting their society," he said.

"So this is the cognitive dissonance, where soldiers are going and they're doing this thing that they believe is for protection."

Possible jail time​

Ofer-Ziv officially refused military duty when he was called up again in June.


He was then notified that he was suspended from military service shortly after signing two refusal petitions. There was an attempt to sway him to remove his signature from them.

He says he believes the government is hoping to keep the activities of refuseniks like him quiet. But he is adamant about his decision, he says.

"I participated in occupation for, let's say, four years, when I was in mandatory service. I participated in the occupation every day.

"I live in Israel. I pay taxes [that] go to the West Bank, they go to occupation," he said.

"So the way I see it, it's me paying my dues…. "[And] this is what I can do to pay back for what I did."

He could face jail time, though he says he may not find out until after the war ends. But Ofer-Ziv says he's at peace with any punishment that he may have to face as a result of his outspoken objection to the war in Gaza.

"I'd rather sit in jail than participate in this war."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-1.7387016
 

Almost 100 Gaza food aid lorries violently looted, UN agency says​

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.
Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.
Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.
Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.

Without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen for the two million people depending on humanitarian aid to survive, according to Unrwa.
A UN-backed assessment warned earlier this month that there was “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip”.
It came after Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in the north and the UN said fewer aid lorries had entered Gaza last month than at any time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
Saturday’s looting was first reported by Reuters news agency, which cited an Unrwa official in Gaza as saying that the convoy was instructed by Israeli authorities to "depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route" from Kerem Shalom.
Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry said its security staff killed "more than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks" in an operation carried out in cooperation with "tribal committees", a network of traditional family clans.
Lazzarini said he could not comment on the route when asked at a news conference in Geneva on Monday, but he confirmed the looting and said: “We have been warning a long time ago about the total breakdown of civil order.”
“Until four or five months ago, we still had local capacity, people who were escorting the convoy. This has completely gone, which means we are in an environment where local gangs, local families, are struggling among each other to take control of any business or any activities taking place in the south. It has become an impossible environment to operate in.”
He added that hundreds of people desperate for food had tried to storm the Unrwa-run vocational centre in the southern city of Khan Younis because they thought the aid had been delivered there.
“But the convoys were looted and there was absolutely nothing to take from the warehouses.”
Unrwa put out a separate statement on X that accused Israeli authorities of continuing to “disregard their legal obligations under international law to ensure the population's basic needs are met and to facilitate the safe delivery of aid”.
“Such responsibilities continue when trucks enter the Gaza Strip, until people are reached with essential assistance.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Earlier, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in the Gaza Strip, Cogat, said on X: “With the challenges the UN aid organisations experience in distributing aid, we are working together on various measures that will facilitate the transfer of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gazans in need.”
“For months now, aid has been piling up on the Gazan side, after Israeli inspection, waiting for collection and distribution, and we've been taking many measures to assist with the pick-up of aid,” it added.
Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group has denied.
Last week, a group of 29 non-governmental organisations said in a report that the looting of aid convoys was “a consequence of Israel's targeting of the remaining police forces in Gaza, scarcity of essential goods, lack of routes and closure of most crossing points, and the subsequent desperation of the population amid these dire conditions”.
They cited media reports as saying that “many incidents are taking place close by or in full view of Israeli forces, without them intervening, even when truck drivers asked for assistance”.
Also on Monday, Palestinian authorities said Israeli strikes had killed more than 30 people across Gaza.
At least 17 were reportedly killed when a house was hit near Kamal Adwan hospital in the Beit Lahia Project, in northern Gaza.
The director of Gaza's health ministry cited Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, as saying that the dead were members of the family of one of the hospital’s medics, Dr Hani Badran. A video purportedly showed Dr Badran being comforted on a ward.
The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency meanwhile said its first responders had recovered the bodies of seven people from a home that was struck in the north-west of Gaza City.
Another four people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent inside the Israeli-designated al-Mawasi humanitarian area, in southern Gaza, it added.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 43,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypjd7gepmo
It is amazing it took this long; mass starvation was always Israel's intention.
 

Virtually no aid has reached besieged north Gaza in 40 days, UN says​

Palestinians are "facing diminishing conditions for survival" in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces because virtually no aid has been delivered in 40 days, the UN has warned.
The UN said all its attempts to support the estimated 65,000 to 75,000 people in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia this month had been denied or impeded, forcing bakeries and kitchens to shut down.
Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in areas of northern Gaza.
The Israeli military has said its six-week-long offensive targets regrouping Hamas fighters, and that it is facilitating civilian evacuations and supply deliveries to hospitals.

Hundreds of people have been killed and between 100,000 and 130,000 others have been displaced to Gaza City, where the UN has said essential resources like shelter, water and healthcare are severely limited.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qd99nqgyo

UN agencies had planned 31 missions to the besieged areas of North Gaza governorate between 1 and 18 November, according to the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Twenty-seven were rejected by Israeli authorities and the other four were severely impeded, meaning they were prevented from accomplishing all the work they set out to do.
"This is happening when the IPC Famine Review Committee said just 11 days ago that parts of northern Gaza face an imminent risk of famine - and that immediate action is needed in days, not weeks," UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
"The result is that bakeries and kitchens in North Gaza governorate have shut down, nutrition support [for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women] has been suspended, and the refuelling of water and sanitation facilities has been completely blocked."
Mr Dujarric said access to the three barely functional hospitals there also remained severely restricted, amid what he called "desperate shortages" of medical supplies and fuel.
On Sunday, a World Health Organisation-led mission to Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia was able to deliver 10,000 litres of fuel and transfer 17 patients, three unaccompanied children and 22 caregivers to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
However, Mr Dujarric said the aid workers were forced to offload all the food supplies and some of the medical supplies they were transporting at an Israeli military checkpoint before reaching the hospital.
The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, warned on Wednesday that the situation there was becoming "even more catastrophic".
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry cited him as saying that the hospital had 85 patients receiving "the minimum level of healthcare" and that it needed children’s food and infant formula to treat an increasing number of malnutrition cases.
Since Tuesday, 17 children had arrived at the emergency room showing signs of malnutrition and an elderly man had died due to severe dehydration, he added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
But data from the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, Cogat, said 472 aid lorries had entered northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing as of 17 November, without specifying whether any of that aid was allowed into the besieged areas.
Cogat also said it was continuing to work with international partners to “facilitate broad humanitarian responses for the civilian population in Gaza".

On Monday, a boy from Beit Lahia told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that he and his family had fled to Gaza City after the Israeli military dropped leaflets from a quadcopter, ordering their immediate evacuation.
"The road from Beit Lahia to Gaza [City] was rough and bumpy with no transport available for us. When we arrived, we didn’t find anything... neither food nor drink. We headed to the schools, but there was no space left because the number of displaced... was huge," he said.
"As a result, we were thrown into the streets and didn’t know where to go. We are six families living in the streets, sitting on sand, dirt and debris.”
The IDF said in a statement on Monday that its forces had killed "dozens of terrorists in close-quarters encounters and through targeted strikes" in the Beit Lahia area over the past week.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told AFP news agency that a drone had killed two people, including a 15-year-old girl, at a school sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia.
The agency's first responders had also recovered the bodies of seven people killed in an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, he added.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 43,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3ypxd3p4eo

Palestinian olive harvest under threat from Israeli attacks and restrictions​

On a Thursday afternoon towards the end of last month, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman set out to gather olives on her family’s land near the village of Faqqua, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
It was something that Hanan Abu Salameh had done for decades.
Within minutes, the mother of seven and grandmother of 14 lay dying in the dust of the olive grove, with a bullet wound in her chest - she’d been shot by an Israeli soldier.
Even though the family had co-ordinated their intention to pick olives with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to her son Fares and husband Hossam, the soldier fired several shots as other family members fled for cover.
The IDF says it’s investigating the incident, but Hanan’s grieving relatives have little hope or expectation that her killer will be brought to justice.
This wasn’t an isolated incident.

Harvesting olives is an age-old ritual and also an economic necessity for many Palestinians, but, according to the UN, it is increasingly precarious.
Farmers across the West Bank - internationally regarded as Palestinian land occupied by Israel - face heightened risks, like organised attacks by Israeli settlers seeking to sabotage the olive harvest, along with the use of force by Israeli security forces to block roads and Palestinians' access to their lands.
“Last year we couldn’t even harvest our olives, except for a very small amount,” says Omar Tanatara, a farmer from the village of Umm Safa.
“At one point, the army came, threw the olives we’d already gathered on the ground, and ordered us to go home,” says Omar, who is also a member of the village council.
“Some people were even shot at and olives trees were cut down with saws – that’s how we later found them,” adds Omar, as he and other villagers use small hand-held rakes to pull this year’s harvest from their remaining trees while they can.

Even when Israeli and international activists accompany villagers to their olive groves, hoping to deter the threat, there’s no guarantee of safety.
Zuraya Hadad instinctively winces as we watch a video of the incident in which her ribs were broken by a masked man wielding a large stick.
The Israeli peace activist had been helping Palestinian farmers pick their olives when she was assaulted without provocation.
Rather than arresting her attacker, Israeli soldiers, who’d accompanied settlers to the site, just told him to move on.
“Even when we come to help, it doesn't guarantee that the Palestinians can harvest their olives,” Zuraya tells me as she recovers from her injuries at home.
“We try to raise awareness, but in the end it's either the settlers steal the olives or cut the trees, or they remain unpicked and go to waste.”
Land is at the heart of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - who controls it and who has access to it.
For thousands of Palestinian families and villages, cultivating and harvesting olives is a big part of their economy.
But many say that, in recent times, access to trees on their land has been impeded, often violently by Israeli settlers.
Hundreds of trees - which can take years to reach fruit-bearing maturity - have been deliberately burned or cut down, says the UN.
More than 96,000 dunums (approximately 96 sq km; 37 sq miles) of olive groves in the West Bank also went uncultivated in 2023 because of Israeli restrictions on access for Palestinian farmers.

After being gathered by hand, villagers from Umm Safa take sacks full of olives to the nearby factory, where the presses have restarted this season.
Olives are the most important agricultural product in the West Bank. In a good year, they're worth more than $70m (£54m) to the Palestinian economy.
But income was well down last year and this year will be even worse, says factory owner Abd al-Rahman Khalifa, as even fewer farmers are able to harvest their crop owing to attacks by settlers.
“Let me give you an example,” he tells me.
“My brother-in-law in Lubban - next to the Israeli settlement - went to pick his own olives, but they broke his arms and they made him leave along with everyone who was with him.”
“We, as Palestinians, don’t have petrol or big companies. Our main agricultural crop is olives,” he adds. “So, like the Gulf depends on oil, and the Americans on business, our economy is dependent on the olive tree.”
On the hill overlooking the olive groves of Umm Safa stands an illegal settler outpost - a farm.
The extremist settler who runs it, Zvi Bar Yosef, was sanctioned this year by the UK and other Western governments for repeated acts of violence against Palestinians, including twice threatening families at gunpoint.
Over the last year of the war in Gaza, Jewish settlers have been emboldened by the support of far-right Israeli ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir.
As national security minister, he has given out free firearms to hundreds of settlers and has encouraged them to assert their right to what - they say - is their "God-given" land.
Ben-Gvir has also been accused of openly supporting the disruption of olive harvesting on Palestinian land.
At the olive press, farmers wait patiently in the yard to witness the transformation of the olives they’ve been able to gather this year into "liquid gold".
The olive tree has been a symbol of this land for centuries.
For generations of Palestinians, it is their link to the land - a link that is under threat now more than ever.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20gnvz1975o
 

Israel is offering $5M and safe passage out of Gaza to anyone who turns over its hostages​

  • PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered $5 million to anyone in Gaza who handed over hostages to Israel.
  • He also offered safe passage out of the war-torn territory to those Palestinians who cooperate.
  • In Israel, there is mounting pressure on Netanyahu to free those remaining in captivity in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that Palestinians in Gaza who turn over Israeli hostages will be offered $5 million as a reward, as well as an exit route out of the war-torn territory.

During Hamas' terror attack across the Israeli border on October 7, 2023, 251 Israeli and foreign hostages were taken, according to Israeli figures.

To date, some 117 of them have been freed or released, and 37 were brought back dead, leaving close to 100 that are thought to still be in Gaza.

It's unclear exactly how many of those hostages remain alive, as well as their precise whereabouts.

But there is intense and growing pressure within Israel, led by the families of the hostages, to bring the captives home. Negotiations have been at a standstill for months.

Netanyahu said Tuesday, while touring a section of the Gaza Strip, that Israel is doing everything it can to locate and return the hostages, per The Times of Israel.

He added, "Whoever dares to harm our hostages — he is a marked man. We will pursue you, and we will get you."

The $5 million pledge builds on earlier reports of a generous but unspecified reward from Israel to those who cooperate.

The New York Times reported that Netanyahu also offered a "safe way out for himself and his family" to whoever returns hostages to Israel.

Leaving Gaza remains a major challenge for Palestinians.

Exiting through Israel requires an Israel-issued permit, and according to reporting by several media outlets, departure via Egypt often involves exorbitant fees.

However, remaining in Gaza amid Israel's invasion remains incredibly dangerous.

The Israel Defense Forces has sought to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, but with that has come devastating destruction.

Humanitarian groups, such as the Red Cross, have put the death toll at more than 43,000 Palestinians, with over 100,000 people injured.
 
So they can let people out, but they're choosing to keep people trapped in an active warzone? And are leveraging them to achieve their goals?

Isn't that what Hamas are doing?
Yea but the Israelis are human and Hamas are not... It does not take much reading of Israeli news outlets to understand this is the sentiment there, and the sentiment has basically conquered the entire Israeli population. The pace of this genocide will be ramping up considerably now.
 
Yea but the Israelis are human and Palestinians/Arabs are not... It does not take much reading of Israeli news outlets to understand this is the sentiment there, and the sentiment has basically conquered the entire Israeli population. The pace of this genocide will be ramping up considerably now.
FTFY
 

Israel is offering $5M and safe passage out of Gaza to anyone who turns over its hostages​


Disturbing pattern to Israeli policy here. They are clearly arming and supporting gangs in Gaza, now they are offering big rewards for getting the hostages. Looks like they are trying to turn Gaza into another Haiti.
 
Further context to the $5 million reward policy: looks like desperation on the Israeli side after this:

Edit: I translated this page from the Hebrew using Google, what it says is that the head of Mossad, the head of Shin Bet, and the head of the IDF's 'abductee directorate' all told Netanyahu three days ago that the only way to get the hostages out of Gaza alive is to accept Hamas' conditions for a ceasefire.
 
Last edited:
I am confused, because from previous posts Israelis intend to murder Palestinians and now they are villains for rewards for info about kidnapped.
What am I missing?
 
I am confused, because from previous posts Israelis intend to murder Palestinians and now they are villains for rewards for info about kidnapped.
What am I missing?

You're missing the point of what I wrote. The villainy is not in offering a reward the hostages, the villainy is more in refusing a deal with Hamas. Offering reward for the hostages is a mark of desperation, not villainy: in my opinion, it is desperation to continue to control the narrative as it becomes increasingly clear, even outside Israel, that return of the hostages is not the goal of the war or even particularly a concern of the current government.
 
Wait
So who do you think is stealing from the aid convoys?
And wouldn't they be the ones who are starving the people of Gaza?
BATRAWY: Armed gangs of looters have sprung up near the main crossing from Israel into Gaza. Police who fend them off are killed by Israel, which deems the police part of Hamas, the group it's at war with in Gaza. Israel's also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies. In southern Gaza, thousands normally flock to this bakery every day. When NPR's producer Anas Baba arrived...
Looks like looters sanctioned by Israel are operating in the area.

I am confused, because from previous posts Israelis intend to murder Palestinians and now they are villains for rewards for info about kidnapped.
What am I missing?
Do you think they've stopped murdering Palestinians? We're more than a year past intent at this point.
 

Arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas commander over alleged war crimes​

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister, as well as Hamas's military commander.
A statement said a pre-trial chamber had rejected Israel’s challenges to the court’s jurisdiction and issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
A warrant was also issued for Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.
The judges said there were “reasonable grounds” the three men bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas have rejected the allegations.
It will now be up to the ICC's 124 member states - which do not include Israel or its ally, the United States - to decide whether or not to enforce the warrants.
In May, the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan sought warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, Deif and two other Hamas leaders who have since been killed, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Although Israel believes Deif has also been killed, the chamber said it was not able to confirm his death.
The prosecutor's case against them stems from the events of 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign to eliminate Hamas, during which at least 44,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Mr Khan accused the Hamas leaders of crimes against humanity and war crimes including extermination, murder, the taking of hostages, rape and torture.
For the Israeli leaders, the accusations included deliberate attacks on civilians, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, as well as extermination and murder.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly2exvx944o
 
Back
Top Bottom