The war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza gave Russia a golden opportunity to sow the seeds of division among its Western enemies. This is an opportunity that the Kremlin's media machine would never have missed, as the American magazine Politico says.

Since the outbreak of war on October 7, Facebook accounts linked to the Kremlin have boosted their output by almost 400%, and the Middle East crisis now dominates the posts of Russian diplomats, state-backed outlets and Putin’s supporters in the West.

Russia benefits from the war in Gaza by weakening the West

According to Politico, rumors spread by digital propagandists in Moscow now include claims that Hamas is using NATO weapons to attack Israel and that British trainers have trained Hamas attackers. The deep-rooted conflict represents a double opportunity for Putin.

It allows Russia to foment division in the West through activity on social networks aimed at separating those who support Israel from those who support Palestine. Real-world violence has escalated over the past seven weeks, and anti-war protests have spread, with millions of people marching from London to Washington.

In addition, the Russian attack on social networks in the Middle East draws public attention away from its war in Ukraine. “It is good for Russia to divert attention away from Ukraine, because the more Western public opinion focuses on Israel and Hamas, the less it cares about the fact that "Congress is about to stop funding the war effort in Ukraine. Shining the spotlight elsewhere will allow attention to be diverted from Ukraine."

Russian geopolitical game

The American magazine says that the attack launched by the Kremlin online reflects the geopolitical game that Putin has been playing since the attacks of October 7.

His government hosted Hamas leaders in Moscow at the end of October, apparently as part of his effort to play a mediating role on the release of Israeli hostages. Russia and Hamas have a common ally in Iran, and Putin himself has warned that Israeli military action in Gaza may escalate outside the region.

The Kremlin was quick to turn the war between Israel and Hamas into a weapon to serve its propaganda purposes.

In the seven weeks since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood broke out on October 7, Russian Facebook accounts posted 44,000 times compared to just 14,000 posts in the seven weeks before the conflict began, according to data collected by the Coalition for Guaranteeing Democracy.

In all, Russian-backed social networking activity on Facebook was shared nearly 400,000 times in total, a four-fold increase compared to posts published before the conflict.

The most shared keywords now include many conflict-related terms such as “Hamas” and “Middle East,” whereas before the war Russian state media and diplomatic accounts focused almost exclusively on Ukraine or Putin’s role in the world.

The nearly 400% increase in posts from accounts linked to the Russian government represents a drop in the ocean when compared to the millions of Facebook posts about the conflict in the Middle East from regular social media users during the same time period.

But many Kremlin-backed accounts — especially those from sanctioned media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik — have outsized digital reach. Together, these companies boast millions of followers in Europe, Latin America and Africa, although the European Union has imposed sanctions on their broadcasting and social networking operations.

Has Russia succeeded in “riding the wave”?

“They are using everything they can to spread anti-Western messages, riding the news wave because they are competing for the same goal,” says Jacob Kalinski, deputy director of the European Center of Excellence for Combating Hybrid Threats, a joint NATO-EU organization that tracks state-backed influence campaigns audiences that consume powerful media sources.”

Such digital propaganda may have real-world effects. Some in the West are openly asking: How long can governments support Ukraine in its costly war against Russia at a time of economic uncertainty?

In France, for example, the Foreign Ministry accused a Russian-affiliated network of social bots of amplifying anti-Semitic images on buildings around Paris. French officials blamed Russia for "creating tensions" between supporters of Israel and those who support Palestine. But the Russian embassy in Paris denied any relationship between Moscow and secret digital activity.

The goal of the covert campaign was to raise tensions in the real world — both in France and across Western Europe — over which side governments supported, according to two senior European officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. “What happens online doesn't stay online anymore,” one official said.

Source: Arabic Post

The Israeli newspaper “Maariv” said, Tuesday, November 28, 2023, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected all the proposals presented to him during the past few years to assassinate the head of the Hamas resistance movement, Yahya Sinwar, and the newspaper spoke about what it considered a big intelligence failure. 

The newspaper reported that the last three heads of the Internal Security Service (Shin Bet) presented to Netanyahu 6 different operations to assassinate Sinwar, noting that the proposals were not preliminary decisions, but rather “they were real operational plans that could be implemented immediately.”

The newspaper notes that Sinwar did not live underground most of the time, but rather was moving with an open agenda, and did not move between secret apartments and hideouts as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has done since 2006.

The plans were detailed, and included different “forms” with different degrees of intensity, and one of the plans included “eliminating all major leaders in Hamas, not just Sinwar,” according to Maariv.

Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen previously said, during an interview with the Meet the Press program, that his agency proposed carrying out an “offensive” operation against all Hamas leaders in Gaza, and he also stated that his successors in the position proposed the same thing at the political level.

The Shin Bet viewed Hamas as an organization whose leadership should be overthrown, based on the great danger posed by its agenda, but Netanyahu rejected all of these operational opportunities.

Reports also revealed that Hamas increased the size of its elite forces by 100% over the past year, that is, it doubled the number of commando forces allocated to the invasion of Israel, which happened within one year. Israel was aware of this step, and of the significant increase in elite numbers, but this did not result in taking the necessary steps.

The Israeli newspaper says, “The more time passes, the more the extent of the intelligence and operational failure that preceded Israel’s collapse on October 7, 2023 (the day the Al-Aqsa Flood operation began) becomes clearer.”

The newspaper added that examples of this “are evident in Sinwar’s speech, which himself spoke about a plan to attack Israel like the flood of Al-Aqsa, as well as the large Hamas exercises in May 2023, which witnessed training on the plan implemented on the ground in October, publicly in front of Israel's eyes.

The newspaper adds: "Not to mention the disturbing reports from observers, including the 8200th officer who tracked what was happening and sent a series of emails in September, carrying major warnings to her superiors."

Source: Arabic Post

A source close to the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip confirmed, on Tuesday, the exchange of lists containing the names of ten hostages held by the Palestinian movement in exchange for 30 Palestinian detainees on the fifth day of the truce with Israel.

The truce between Israel and Hamas was extended on Tuesday to allow the release of more Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees and the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation remains “catastrophic.”

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari said in a press conference today that Doha is focusing on extending the ceasefire beyond tomorrow, based on the movement’s ability to continue releasing 10 hostages per day.

He added that Qatar cannot verify the number of hostages remaining after the twenty that Hamas will release today and tomorrow, which are two days added to the truce that was initially scheduled to last 4 days.

Hamas said it was seeking to reach a new truce agreement with Israel under which the movement would release hostages other than the women and children it has already released so far, according to Reuters.

Statements in this regard issued late yesterday by Khalil al-Hayya, leader of the Hamas movement, coincided with Israel expanding the list of female Palestinian detainees that it could release in exchange for the release of hostages, which represents another indication that amending the terms of the truce is being considered.

Al-Hayya said: “We hope that the occupation will comply within the next two days because we are explicitly seeking to enter into a new deal other than women and children, so that we can exchange other categories that we have.”

He added that there is an effort “to go towards an additional period to complete the exchange process with the people we have available to whom we can exchange at this stage.”

Yesterday, the truce, which was initially agreed to last 4 days, was extended for two additional days.

Under the agreement reached with Qatari and Egyptian mediation last week, Hamas released 50 Israeli women and children who were detained in Gaza, in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, with the option of doubling these numbers if the truce is extended for 5 days.

Israel published in advance the names of 300 detained Palestinian women and male minors for possible release.

Officials said that late yesterday, the Israeli government added the names of 50 female detainees to that list.

Israeli government spokesmen have not yet responded when asked about an explanation for the new number, which is not divisible by 3, which may mean that work is underway to prepare a new exchange formula.

Hamas captured about 240 people during its attack on southern Israel on October 7. Among the hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip are fathers, husbands, women and children, whom the movement released in recent days.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres renewed his call for a permanent truce in the Gaza Strip and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

In a statement issued today, Tuesday, ahead of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Guterres said that the Palestinians are suffering from “one of the darkest chapters in their history,” reiterating his condemnation of “Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.”

However, he stressed that this “cannot justify collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” calling for “a long-term humanitarian ceasefire, unrestricted access to life-saving aid, the release of all hostages, the protection of civilians, and an end to violations of international humanitarian law.”

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this evening that the leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, met with some Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip in person.

The newspaper added that Sinwar spoke to the Israeli prisoners inside the tunnels in Hebrew and told them, "You are in a safe place."

The Hebrew Channel 12 commented on the incident as “the most wonderful story in the war so far... Sinwar again.”

Channel correspondent Amit Sehgal said, “We have heard many unbelievable stories, but this is the most amazing of all. When I heard it, my jaw dropped.”

According to the channel: “One of the liberated Israeli female prisoners, who returned to her family in the last days from the Gaza Strip, narrated an incident that occurred in the first days of captivity, that is, the first days of the war, where she and the other Israeli prisoners were detained in a tunnel when they felt that something was happening and then the door was opened.”

The channel quoted the Israeli prisoner released in an exchange deal: “A bearded man stands at the door and speaks to them in excellent Hebrew without an accent. His name is: Yahya Al-Sinwar.”

She added: “The man who personally ordered the events of October 7 wants to know the condition of the Israeli prisoners, so he looks at them in the tunnel and says to them in Hebrew: “Welcome, I am Yahya Sinwar, and you are here safe and nothing will happen to you.”

She pointed out that the security officials supervising the investigation into the case of those released had verified the veracity of the story.

The Israeli army announced that its artillery fired more than 100,000 shells during the days of the war, more than 90,000 of which were in the Gaza Strip.

This is what an Israeli army spokesman said: “During the fighting, the artillery missile unit fired more than 200 guided missiles at dozens of targets.

A spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, Margaret Harris, said on Tuesday that a greater number of Gazans are at risk of dying from diseases than from bombing, if the health system in the Strip is not supported to return to normal quickly.

“Ultimately, we will see more people dying from disease than from bombing if we cannot rebuild this health system,” spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.

She described the collapse witnessed by Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza as a "tragedy" and expressed her concern about the detention of some of its medical staff by Israeli forces.

The spokeswoman said that the international organization is "very concerned" about the hospital employees detained in Gaza, and their neutrality as medical personnel must be respected.

On November 14, the Israeli army stormed Al-Shifa Hospital - the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip - after besieging it for several days and bombing its facilities, including electricity generators and operating rooms.

The occupation army then kidnapped the hospital director, Muhammad Abu Salamiya, and 5 medical personnel while transporting wounded people from the health facility. The World Health Organization was accused of involvement in their kidnapping, but it denied having any information about their fate.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza then announced the suspension of coordination with the World Health Organization in evacuating patients and medical personnel from hospitals in the Strip after the Israeli army detained its health employees, including the director of Al-Shifa Hospital.

The fate of Al-Shifa Hospital was similar to the fate of most hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, which were completely or partially out of service as a result of the Israeli siege and bombing on them.

Before entering into a temporary humanitarian truce last Friday, the Israeli army launched a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, leaving more than 15,000 martyrs, including more than 10,000 children and women, while about 7,000 people are still missing. The number of infected people exceeded 36 thousand.

Health organizations have warned of the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics in Gaza as a result of the decomposition of the bodies remaining under the rubble, as well as the complete cutting off of water to the Strip since the start of the Israeli aggression.

This Tuesday afternoon, a child from the village of Tayasir, east of Tubas, died as a result of his injuries sustained by Israeli soldiers this morning.

Medical sources at the Turkish Tubas Governmental Hospital said that the child Amr Ahmed Jamil Wahdan (14 years old) was dead as a result of being shot in the chest by live bullets in the village of Tayasir, east of Tubas.

Wahdan was injured by live bullets in the village, in addition to three other young men during the occupation forces’ storming of the city of Tubas earlier today.

Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila said that 470 wounded people from the Gaza Strip have been received so far in Egyptian hospitals.

During her inspection of the wounded in Egyptian hospitals, Minister Alkaila expressed her hope that coordination would be made for the discharge of more wounded in the coming days.

She pointed out that 35,000 wounded people from the Gaza Strip are in need of treatment, praising the Egyptian efforts, especially the Ministry of Health, which is constantly contacted, and which has harnessed its capabilities to receive them.

She touched on the devastated health system in the Gaza Strip due to the aggression, saying: There are 26 hospitals out of 35 that were out of service as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

The Minister of Health explained that the death toll has so far reached 16,000 dead, 35,000 wounded, and 6,000 missing, stressing that the Gaza Strip needs a lot of humanitarian relief and medical aid.

She stressed the need to bring aid into the Gaza Strip, which suffers from a severe scarcity of nutrition and rations, and a lack of medicines and medical supplies.

The Washington Post published an article in which its author praised US President Joe Biden’s announcement of his desire to revive a Palestinian government that brings together the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under a “unified administrative structure.”

The author of the article - Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab - described the announcement as a "noble goal" that deserves to be rewarded by the American president. However, he did not hide his skepticism, seeking excuse for the Palestinians to wonder whether Biden was really serious when he made that statement.

If he is really serious, there is one step he can take now to achieve that desire, which is to recognize Palestine as a member state of the United Nations.

The writer - who previously worked as a professor of journalism at Princeton University in the United States - recalled that in 2012, the United Nations General Assembly granted the status of a non-member observer state to Palestine. 139 countries have recognized Palestine as a state within the borders of June 4, 1967.

He added that the United States and most European countries repeatedly called for adopting a two-state solution, but they refused to recognize the Palestinian state, and the Biden administration even refused to recognize the status of Palestine as a state under occupation.

Recognizing Palestine as a full-fledged state will have - in the opinion of the author of the article - many positive effects, and will show that Biden is truly serious about his declared goal of a two-state solution.

This would undermine the positions of the "extremists" on both sides, as the Palestinians among them refuse to recognize Israel, while the Israeli extremists from the far right "want to annex all Palestinian lands west of the Jordan River."

The book believes that the Palestinians are in dire need of a revived political structure, as President Biden says, a structure that is supposed to be based on the will of the Palestinian people, which is manifested in free elections. However, holding such elections - according to the Washington Post article - is almost impossible unless voters are sure that it will bring them closer to liberation from the occupation and endless violence.

In parallel with the United States’ recognition of the Palestinian state, Biden and the current Palestinian leaders must acknowledge the mistakes they made regarding holding elections that would lead to the selection of a new Palestinian leadership “to negotiate with Israel,” in the words of the Palestinian journalist, who criticized President Mahmoud Abbas for his hesitation “for fear of "Competition" comes from a new generation of "younger and more popular" figures, such as the detained leader Marwan Barghouti.

Biden's recognition of Palestine - if achieved - would give the Palestinians hope for liberation, and strengthen the ceasefire by drawing a clear political road map, according to the article.

Then, such recognition - as the author of the article believes - would help Biden domestically restore his credibility among American youth, progressives, and Arab and Muslim Americans in the Democratic Party, who are deeply disappointed by his policy towards Israel.

The writer concludes with the necessity of abandoning the tried-and-true “fragmented” solutions in any serious attempt to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, considering that this is the only path to finding an effective way out of the current crisis, and it is “an opportunity that should not be missed.”

Israelis who were recently liberated from captivity by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip said that Israeli bombing was sometimes close to them, which sometimes prompted Hamas guards to evacuate their positions and leave the Israelis in a room alone, according to the Arab World News Agency ».

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation quoted testimonies of Israelis detained in Gaza who said that food and drink were scarce, even for the guards themselves.

The authority added: “The testimony of one of the abductees who was released sheds light on the harsh conditions in which they were being held by Hamas, the little food they were receiving and whose supplies had deteriorated in recent days.”

The authority quotes one of the detainees as talking about “bad health conditions, a long stay underground, and constant terror.”

Family members of one of the detainees said that Hamas members were dividing the bread into small pieces in order to distribute it to the detainees to ensure that it was enough for everyone.

In the past four days, Hamas released dozens of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, as part of a truce between Israel and the Hamas movement, which was extended today (Tuesday) for an additional two days, to allow the release of more Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees and the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation still “catastrophic.”

Under the agreement reached with Qatari and Egyptian mediation last week, Hamas released 50 Israeli women and children who were detained in Gaza, in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, with the option of doubling these numbers if the truce is extended for five days.

During her swearing-in yesterday, Monday, the new Bolivian Foreign Minister Celinda Sosa pledged to continue defending the Palestinian cause.

This comes weeks after Bolivia severed its diplomatic relations with Israel at the end of last October in condemnation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip.

Sousa indicated during the constitutional swearing-in ceremony in the presence of leftist President Luis Arce that, through her new position, she will continue to defend the Palestinian people.

Sosa said: “From the Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we will continue to defend the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination and build their free, independent and sovereign state.”

After severing diplomatic relations with Israel, in response to the bloody bombing campaign launched by the occupation against civilians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement criticizing the Bolivian decision.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs described La Paz's decision as "submission to terrorism... surrender to Iran, and shameful support for Hamas." The statement noted that since the change in government in Bolivia, bilateral relations between the two parties have witnessed a severe cooling.

Like Bolivia, the Kingdom of Belize, a Caribbean country, announced the severing of its diplomatic relations with Israel in the middle of this month.

Colombia, Chile and Honduras also recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv for consultations against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza.

The new Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs is 60 years old and took over the ministry in succession to lawyer Rogelio Maita, who resigned from his position to become a judge in the Court of the Andean Community of Nations, an organization on the American continent whose goal is to create a common market.

In 1983, Sosa participated in establishing the Union of Peasant Women in the southern province of Tarija, before assuming the presidency of the “Unified Union of Peasants of Bolivia,” which is considered one of the most prominent unions in the country.

Between 2006 and 2007, Sosa served as Minister of Production under President Evo Morales (2006-2019), who is descended from the country's indigenous population.

British Guardian columnist Nesreen Malik says the only thing she can say with complete certainty about the Gaza war is that people have seen a lot that will stay with them for a long time, and that their trust in the “international community” will never be the same.

She explained that whatever happened with the fragile truce that released a thin beam of light, a darkness was released into the world whose final form is not yet complete, but it continues to take shape.

Not universal

She added that the inability to convince "the only democracy in the Middle East" of something seems quite clear, which is that the events that occurred last October 7 cannot be erased with more horror, and the lesson is brutal and short: human rights are not universal and international law is applied arbitrarily. 

She pointed out that political leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom present a blatantly bloodless narrative of the conflict that ignores the absolute truth and the number of deaths and instead resorts to almost surreal language calling for “all possible precautions” to protect civilian lives, and UN officials lose their calm and use the strongest possible terms, in what appears to be a direct result of this strange insistence on not calling reality what it is.

The writer commented on the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation during the war, saying that Gaza is the place where the feeling of losing your mind comes from: the fact that Western powers seem unable to even pretend that there is a global system of rules that they claim to uphold.

Terrifying speed

She added that part of the inability to come up with convincing narratives about the cause of the death of so many innocent people is that events escalated at a terrifying speed, and there was no time to determine the pace of the attacks on Gaza, prepare justifications and hope that time and short attention spans would eventually cover the losses. 

She noted that the Gaza war was a uniquely intense and uncomfortable conflict, and pointed to what the New York Times said that the rate of death during Israel's campaign has few precedents in this century.

Not like Iraq

Nisreen Malik continued by saying that the past few weeks were a powerful lesson in the illusory nature of international law, unlike Iraq, where it took years for bodies to accumulate, and evidence to mount and prove that the project did not make anyone safer, was merciless and misleading, and in the end confidence seeps through Political leadership.

She explained that the events in Gaza are taking place in real time, and in some cases are broadcast live, and that the bombing operations are so relentless and focused that entire families have been wiped out. Thousands were displaced, carrying their children. There is also the moral force of the conditions of children, not just their deaths, estimated at 6,000 in less than two months, but their orphanage, displacement and deprivation of food and water in besieged Gaza which is now, according to UNICEF, “the most dangerous place in the world for children.”

Source: Guardian +Aljazeera.net

The British Economist magazine expects that there will be a next phase of fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, which will be more difficult and controversial after the end of the truce.

The British magazine considered what is happening now to be a rare moment of peace after weeks of suffering, as dozens of Israelis who had been detained for 7 weeks were reunited with their families. The short cessation of the war in Gaza also allowed Palestinians to leave their shelters and search for food, fuel, their missing relatives, and what remained of their homes.

However, those moments were bittersweet. Most of the hostages were not released, and most of the Palestinians who returned to their homes found nothing but rubble. These moments will also be short-lived, as the truce was scheduled to end today, November 28, with the aim of facilitating the exchange of 50 Israeli hostages held in Gaza for 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

The magazine reported that the hostage exchange may continue for a few more days, but it will end, and the next fighting may be worse than what happened before.

It added that at some point the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) will run out of hostages it wants to release in this round of negotiations. Both Israeli soldiers and men will likely remain captive, in the unlikely hope of concluding a larger deal that would include a permanent ceasefire and the release of many Palestinian prisoners. When the truce comes to its inevitable end, Israel will resume fighting against Hamas.

The Economist believes that in the next round of fighting, Israeli forces will continue combing the ruins of northern Gaza in search of tunnel entrances, rocket launchers, and other military sites.

Moving to a humanitarian area

The Economist pointed out that Israeli officials fear the way forward in the south of the Gaza Strip, as they cannot easily send armored units to control the area as they did in the north, because it is crowded with displaced civilians.

Alternatively, they may seek to do so piecemeal, moving into one area at a time, perhaps starting with the central city of Khan Yunis, and trying to force Gazans to move to a designated “humanitarian zone” near the coast.

This is what the magazine considered a risky matter, as civilians will have to choose between gathering on a deserted strip of beach and hiding in their homes or in temporary shelters, both of which could lead to horrific results. Fighting in densely populated areas without heavy armor would be more dangerous for Israeli forces.

The Economist added that all of this makes America nervous. Although US President Joe Biden did not call for a ceasefire, his team is concerned about Israel's plan to launch a major attack in the south. America would like Israel to stop its campaign in the south, especially since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no plan for what will happen in Gaza after the war.

The magazine concluded that if America pressures Israel to back down, this could spare the 2.2 million residents of the Gaza Strip from another round of fighting and displacement. But it may also leave them stuck in an overcrowded and desperate enclave even smaller than the one they lived in before.

Source: Economist +Aljazeera.net

Norwegian Jan Egeland, one of the architects of the Oslo Accords that were supposed to lead to “peaceful coexistence” between two Israeli and Palestinian states, believes that these agreements are no longer valid “at all,” and that the solution to the current war in the Gaza Strip requires international leadership that is currently “ very weak” at the moment.

September 13, 1993, made history when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn in the presence of US President Bill Clinton.

This scene represented the culmination of 14 rounds of secret talks in Oslo, co-organized by Norwegian Jan Egeland, who was at the time Minister of State in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This resulted in the beginning of a sensitive process. Under these agreements, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization had to recognize each other, and a transitional Palestinian self-rule was to be established for a period of five years, which was the appropriate period to put the final touches on settling the basic files, such as the status of the city of Jerusalem, the settlements, the fate of refugees, and others.

30 years after the conclusion of these agreements, and at a time when the Israeli occupation has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, Egeland (66 years old) believes that the Oslo Accords are “completely dead.”

He said during an interview with Agence France-Presse: “The Oslo Accords no longer exist per se". Now we will need another agreement, and it must be coordinated between the United States, the European Union and the Arab countries.”

The former diplomat, who has now become Secretary-General of the non-governmental organization Norwegian Refugee Council, believes that the only possible solution to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas will come from abroad.

He adds: "It is not possible for Israel and Hamas to negotiate (alone) about the future of these lands. There will be no trust: Israel is working to destroy Hamas, while Hamas exists to eliminate Israel."

He continues: "The leaders on both sides are never at the level of the leaders who were in the era of (Oslo Accords), who were visionary, strong, and true leaders. Today, we have populists in both camps, indeed."

On one of the walls of the room where Agence France-Presse met him, there are pictures showing Egeland shaking hands with Yasser Arafat and former US President George H.W. Bush.

"illusion"

The war broke out on October 7, during which the occupation launched intense bombardment on the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been accompanied since the 27th of the same month by extensive ground operations inside the Gaza Strip. The bombing caused the death of approximately 15,000 people, including more than 6,000 children.

“After that, there will be a lot of bitterness and hatred on both sides, and there will be more violence,” Egeland says.

He continues: "It is an illusion for Israel to believe that it can achieve security and peace through bombs. It is an illusion to believe that by mass killing of Israeli civilians, as Hamas did, and holding civilians hostage, we can solve the problem of Israel's existence."

But the international community is not up to this task either, according to Egeland, as it has “very weak” leadership.

He wonders: “Where is the American, European, British and French leadership to really help push towards a final settlement? The same question for the Arab side.”

He adds: "This is almost always the problem: you are ready to criticize your ally's enemy, but you are not ready to push your ally toward a settlement." For him, it is very important to resume the talks with the greatest possible confidentiality.

He explains: “Clandestine communication channels and secret negotiations have a huge advantage, which is that the parties are not talking for show. They do not have to deal with any provocation or act of violence that happened yesterday or the day before. They can really negotiate.”

Source: (AFP) +Alaraby Aljadeed

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the two-state solution is the only way to guarantee long-term security for Palestinians and Israelis, according to what was reported by the Arab World News Agency.

Biden added on the “X” platform that the United States will not stop working to achieve a two-state solution “to ensure that Palestinians and Israelis alike enjoy freedom and dignity.”

In turn, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday, reiterated to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant in a call the need to increase humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The US Department of Defense quoted Austin as saying that he stressed during the call the importance of governmental and non-governmental parties avoiding expanding the current conflict in Gaza. It added in a statement that Austin briefed Gallant on the United States’ efforts to protect its forces and interests throughout the Middle East.

On Monday, Arab countries and the European Union agreed during a meeting in Spain on the need for a two-state solution in order to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while European Union foreign policy official Josep Borrell said that the Gaza Strip should be subject to the rule of the Palestinian Authority.

Borrell said that all EU members who attended the Union for the Mediterranean Forum in Barcelona, and almost all attendees, agreed on the need for a two-state solution.

In turn, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that the Palestinian people must decide who rules them and that any talk about managing Gaza after the conflict must focus on the West Bank and Gaza as a single entity.

The two-state solution provides for the establishment of a state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel.

The two officials spoke at the conclusion of a short meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean Forum in Barcelona, a grouping that includes 43 members from European, North African and Middle Eastern countries. Israel did not participate in this forum.

Karen Zraick

Negotiations over the release of Israeli women and children held hostage in the Gaza Strip focused on the exchange of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons. The group has grown rapidly in size during the six weeks of war and unrest since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the Palestinian prisoners' rights group.

The Addameer human rights organization says that about 200 boys, most of them teenagers, were detained in Israel, as of this week, along with about 75 women and 5 teenage girls. Before October 7, there were about 150 boys and 30 women and girls in Israeli prisons, and since then, there have been a number of other arrests, as well as many releases.

Addameer said it compiled the figures using data from the Israel Prison Service, which runs the country's prisons, and information from families of people in detention.

Early last Wednesday, the Israeli government and Hamas announced that they would maintain a 4-day ceasefire in Gaza, to allow the release of 50 hostages taken during last month’s Hamas attack on Israel, as well as 150 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel.

A number of the latest arrests came during raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where protests and violence, including attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians, have escalated. Israel said the arrests were part of a counter-terrorism operation against Hamas in the West Bank.

There are also about 700 people missing from Gaza who are believed to be in Israeli prisons, but information about their whereabouts is vague, according to statements by Tala Nasser, spokeswoman for the Addameer Foundation. It is not clear how many, if any, of these people are women or minors. The Israeli army announced that it had arrested 300 people in Gaza during the ground invasion, claiming that they were linked to armed Palestinian groups, and that they were “transferred to Israeli territory for further investigation.”

Of the approximately 240 Israeli hostages led by Hamas and other armed groups to Gaza, 33 are minors, according to the Israeli government. There are at least 62 women, according to an organization formed by the families of the hostages, and 4 of the women held hostage are Israeli soldiers, according to interviews with their family members and information collected by a forum for the families of the hostages.

As of this week, the total number of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel, including people from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, has reached 7,000 detainees, compared to about 5,000 detainees before October 7, according to the Addameer Foundation. This includes more than 2,000 people held in “administrative detention,” meaning they are detained indefinitely, without charges being brought against them, according to the report.

Tala Nasser said that her group defines this group as Palestinians who were arrested for activities related to political activism and freedom of expression, rather than criminal offenses such as drugs or violence. She added that the Addameer Foundation had received a number of reports, in recent weeks, about Palestinians being arrested on charges of incitement to publish articles on social media sites in Israel and the West Bank. Earlier this month, the Israeli Knesset approved an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Law criminalizing “the consumption of terrorist materials.”

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, said it is monitoring 121 cases of arrest and detention linked to social media posts, some of which “contain only expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, or even verses from the Qur’an.”

Human rights groups have long warned that Palestinian detainees are being held without due process and face ill-treatment and even torture. Military Courts Watch, a non-profit legal organization, said last year that of the 100 Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces it interviewed, 74 percent reported physical abuse, and 42 percent said they had been placed in solitary confinement.

The Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported that 6 Palestinian detainees who were being held without charges had died in Israeli prisons in recent weeks. One of them, Omar Daraghmeh, was a senior member of Hamas, according to what Hamas said when it announced his death.

The occupation forces arrested 260 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during the four days of the truce, as part of a campaign of raids and acts of assault and vandalism targeting the citizens of the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.

The club reported that detainees are being investigated by Israeli intelligence officers, and some of them are released after hours or days or are transferred to administrative detention without charge or trial.

The club added that the total number of detainees in the West Bank has reached 3,260 since last October 7, coinciding with the aggression launched by Israel against the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Prisoners' Club also confirmed that 60 Palestinian women are still in Israeli prisons, including 56 who were arrested after last October 7.

At dawn on Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces blew up a house in the Deir Ammar camp, west of Ramallah.

The Israeli occupation forces stormed the camp, surrounded the house of the dead Daoud Abdel Razzaq Darras (41 years old), and began excavation and destruction work around the house, then blew it up. It was located on the ground floor of a three-story building.

Local sources said that confrontations broke out after the occupation forces stormed the village of Deir Ammar and its camp, during which the occupation soldiers fired live bullets at the young men, wounding two young men in the foot, after which they were taken to the hospital.

They pointed out that the occupation soldiers raided a number of houses surrounding the martyr’s house and forced their residents to evacuate them, and the soldiers climbed onto their roofs.

It is noteworthy that the occupation forces shot the young man Daras on August 31, under the pretext of carrying out a trampling attack, at the “Maccabim” military checkpoint, near the “Modi’in” settlement, established on the lands of Beit Sira.

The Ministry of Health announced, at dawn on Tuesday, that a young man was killed by Israeli occupation bullets in the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah.

The Ministry indicated in a statement that a dead body arrived at the Palestine Medical Complex in the city of Ramallah after being shot by the Israeli occupation army in the town of Beitunia.

Security sources reported that the young man, Yassin Abdullah Al-Asmar (26 years old), from the town of Beitunia, died as a result of being hit in the chest by Israeli soldiers during confrontations that broke out in the town, while another young man (23 years old) was injured by live bullets in the foot.

At dawn today, the boy Malik Majid Abdel Fattah Daghra (17 years old) died as a result of his wounds shot by the Israeli occupation during confrontations that broke out in the village of Kafr Ain, northwest of Ramallah.

The occupation forces arrested the young man, Nassim Al-Barghouti, from his home. He is a student at Birzeit University.

The report stated that a female officer quoted senior Hamas officials as chanting slogans that the report described as “battle cries.” She emphasized: “They are training, with large forces, for a major event... This is preparation for the real thing.”

An officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Army Intelligence Division deliberately reduced the team of intelligence operatives, charged with collecting intelligence information about the activities of the Hamas movement, so that the team would not work at night, nor on weekends as well, according to what was revealed by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan), in a report issued Monday.

The report indicated that the aforementioned officer had said in a “closed lecture” about two years ago that “the warning in the Gaza arena will not come from classical sources,” indicating that intelligence information about what Hamas is planning “will come either from a private source, or via cyber, and not on the basis of tactical eavesdropping.”

The broadcasting authority quoted an intelligence source, which it said was familiar with the details of this, that the presence of an intelligence team like the one mentioned in the hours preceding the attack of last October 7 does not necessarily mean that it was able to issue advance warning about the surprise attack carried out by Hamas. However, he indicated that this will be examined in the investigations that will be conducted later.

Although he did not confirm that the work of the intelligence team would have necessarily prevented a Hamas attack, the same source stressed that it “could have helped provide a real-time picture of the situation, amid the chaos of the first hours of the attack, such as the places where the elite forces (fighters) were hiding of the Hamas movement, who were present in the “Gaza envelope” settlements during the attack.

The broadcasting corporation stated, “The reduction in the number of employees and working hours indicates a failure in arranging priorities within the intelligence service.”

“Control of a kibbutz”; “We are fully prepared and awaiting instructions.”

In this context, the newspaper "Haaretz" reported on its website, on Monday, that the officer in the Military Intelligence Division, who had previously warned of a possible "mass infiltration operation" by fighters of the "Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades", the military wing of the Hamas movement, She told her leaders that Hamas members had completed a military training exercise, with the words: “We have finished killing all the residents of the kibbutz.”

According to a report by Israeli Channel 12, on July 6 of this year, the officer sent an email to her commanders, entitled: “Death in the kibbutz, at any cost.”

According to the report, the female officer mentioned in the same letter that “at the end of last May, there was a ‘crazy’ training session for two ‘elite’ companies, in the presence of a number of senior Hamas officials.”

The training, according to the same letter, was “long and exhausting, and lasted from the morning hours until eight-thirty in the evening,” and included Al-Qassam members driving four-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles. It also included training on a scenario of shooting down Israeli aircraft and a drone.

According to the officer, the main training of Hamas members was focused on “controlling the kibbutz, which they called with an invented name,” according to the report.

The officer pointed to another target identified by Hamas members, which was a “military training base.” In this regard, the officer wrote in her warning message: “Instructions have been issued to kill the entire crew.”

Three days later, another member of the same unit was informed that additional training had been conducted for additional battalions in Hamas, where each battalion trained for a special and specific goal.

The report indicated that the officer then sent another email, which stated: “A nice little addition (to the warning she had previously sent) - during training, the following conversation took place (among Hamas members): ‘How are you doing and what is your state of readiness? “Awaiting instructions from you so that we can enter them from the gate, and we are fully prepared, awaiting instructions from you.”

A senior Israeli officer: an unrealistic scenario

Later, on July 12, for the first time, a senior intelligence officer in the region responded to this extensive email correspondence, according to the report, which noted that while the officer praised the officer for her work and agreed that “the exercise sounds crazy,” he wrote. “But the exercise scenario described, according to what (the officer) initially wrote, is completely fictional... and we need to see what is realistic.”

Even after that, the same officer insisted on the information she provided, and also presented her analysis on it, saying: “I strongly deny the existence of an imaginary scenario. It is difficult for me to imagine that the purpose of it (military training) was to practice an imaginary scenario and raise morale.” In my view, this scenario is very likely, mainly because Hamas has the ability to implement it.

One of the officer's colleagues also sent another message confirming that he shared the officer's position and analysis, and said in his message: "I confirm that we completely and categorically disagree with the assumption that this is a fictional scenario."

"Prepare for the real thing"

The officer stressed that this may be “an implementation plan, without a timetable for implementation,” and according to the report; “In other words: we will not be able to give warning in time.”

She also confirmed that what is happening is a “strategic event,” according to the information she has. As she put it, “This is a plan designed to start a war.”

The report stated that the female officer, while spying on the training, quoted senior Hamas officials chanting slogans that the report described as “battle cries.” She emphasized: “They are training, with large forces, for a major event... This is preparation for the real thing.”

For its part, the Israeli army said after the channel approached it: “These days, the Israeli army is completely focused on fighting the Hamas terrorist organization. After the war, the Israeli army will conduct an in-depth, careful and uncompromising investigation, and publish its results to the public.”

source: arab48

The fourth batch of the exchange deal included 3 female prisoners: Nafoz Hammad from Jerusalem, Yasmin Shaaban from Jenin, and Etaf Jaradat from Jenin, in addition to 30 Palestinian children from Israeli occupation prisons.

Israel released 33 Palestinian prisoners, including 3 female prisoners and 30 children and boys, in the fourth installment of the prisoner exchange agreement concluded between Israel and the Hamas movement.

30 prisoners, including children and youth, from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem were also released from Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah.

In this context, Qatar announced the extension of the truce in the Gaza Strip for an additional two days, after the first agreement of the truce was scheduled to expire tomorrow morning, Tuesday.

It is scheduled to extend the truce for an additional two days to include the release of 60 other Palestinian prisoners, women and children, from occupation prisons, and 20 Israeli hostages will be released from the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas movement said in a brief statement: “The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces that it has been agreed with the brothers in Qatar and Egypt to extend the temporary humanitarian truce for an additional two days, under the same conditions as the previous truce.”

During these meetings in the Middle East, Blinken will stress the need to continue providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, ensure the release of all hostages and strengthen the protection of civilians in Gaza.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank again by the end of the week, and will also go to Dubai to attend the United Nations COP28 climate conference, according to what a senior US State Department official announced on Tuesday.

This will be Blinken's third visit to the Middle East since the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and the "Al-Aqsa Flood" battle on October 7th.

The official said, requesting anonymity, that Blinken "during these meetings in the Middle East, will stress the need to continue providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, ensure the release of all hostages and enhance the protection of civilians in Gaza."

He added that Blinken will also stress the necessity of establishing an independent Palestinian state, considering that this is the only solution in the long term. He will also address the efforts made to “contain the conflict.”

Blinken, who began a tour in Europe on Monday, will visit Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then he will head to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, according to the official.

No specific date has been announced, but the visit to Israel is supposed to take place on Thursday after Blinken participates on Tuesday and Wednesday in a NATO meeting in Brussels and on Wednesday in a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe hosted by the Macedonian capital, Skopje.

Blinken embarked on a whirlwind tour of the region shortly after the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas on the “Gaza envelope” settlements and Israeli towns in the south. Since then, he has repeatedly visited Israel and Jordan and also traveled to other Arab countries.

In early November, he undertook a new tour in the region, during which he visited Ramallah for the first time since the start of the recent conflict.

Blinken will visit Dubai on Friday to continue discussions aimed at avoiding any escalation of the conflict, according to the American official. A large number of officials will be present in the emirate to participate in the launch of the COP28 climate summit.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that the Israeli occupation deliberately deprived the Strip’s hospitals of their medical content, and made them ineligible to perform their vital functions in saving the sick and wounded.

Al-Qudra added in statements to Al-Jazeera Net that the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip issued a distress call yesterday, Sunday, to all medical teams that were able to reach the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, and they joined them on Monday morning, “but we also demand more support for the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, especially with regard to medicines” and medical consumables and providing a suitable atmosphere for hospitals to carry out their functions in light of the ongoing aggression and repeated threats after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the northern Gaza Strip.”

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza indicated that the Israeli occupation “deliberately struck the hospital infrastructure and displaced the population from the north to the south, including medical personnel, killed and injured a large number of medical personnel, destroyed more than 60 ambulances, and targeted 160 health institutions” 28 hospitals went out of service, and 63 primary care centers also went out of service.

Regarding the situation of the medical sector in light of the fourth day of the truce agreement, Al-Qudra said, “We in the Gaza Strip were subjected to a direct targeting operation by the Israeli occupation, and it began to strangle the health system on the first day of the aggression by cutting off medical supplies, fuel, and electricity.”

He added that the medical reality - unfortunately - within the Gaza region and the north in particular is very difficult, and Israeli threats continue. 

Regarding the volume of medical aid that entered the Gaza Strip following the truce agreement, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said, “The medical aid that entered was less than hoped for, and unfortunately it was also not directed to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, and this keeps the health system collapsed.”

Supporting the health system

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza made a call for “the health system in the Strip to be supported with medicines, medical consumables, and fuel,” and for the arrival of “field hospitals with large capacities that can respond to the large number of wounded and sick cases,” and to compensate for the large number of hospitals that are no longer in service as a result of the Israeli bombing.

He also called for the necessity of “many of the wounded being taken out for treatment outside the Gaza Strip, as if they remain inside the Gaza Strip, we lose dozens of cases every day due to the lack of appropriate treatment.”

The French Dixmod helicopter carrier designated to provide medical care to the injured in the Gaza Strip arrived at the Egyptian port of Al-Arish, today, Monday, according to a shipping source told Agence France-Presse, on the fourth day of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas, which was extended for two additional days.

While the war has destroyed the health system in Gaza, hospitals in the south of the Strip are still receiving many wounded evacuated from the north, where almost all health facilities have stopped.

The same source explained that the French ship includes two operating rooms and about 60 beds.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas), published a letter sent by one of the detainees to the leadership of the brigades, who accompanied her during the detention period, hours before her release in an exchange deal as part of a humanitarian truce.

The letter showed the extent of the humane treatment with which the Al-Qassam Brigades treated female prisoners and children, contrary to what the occupation government and the Israeli and Western media tried to show the world.

Here is the text of the message:

“To the generals who have accompanied me in recent weeks, it seems that we will part tomorrow, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for the extraordinary humanity you have shown towards my daughter Emilia.

You were like parents to her, inviting her to your room at every opportunity she wanted. She admits to feeling that you are all her friends and not just friends, but real good beloved relatives.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the many hours you were like a nanny. Thank you for being so patient with her and showering her with sweets, fruits, and whatever was available even if it wasn't available.

Children should not be in captivity, but thanks to you and to other good people we have met along the way. My daughter considered herself a queen in Gaza.

In general, she admits to feeling like the center of the world. We have not met a person on our long journey, from the low level fighters to the leaders, who did not act towards her with kindness, tenderness and love.

I will forever be in a  debt of gratitude, because my daughter did not leave here with psychological trauma forever. I will remember your kind behavior that was granted here despite the difficult situation that you were dealing with yourselves and the difficult losses that befell you here in Gaza.

I wish that in this world we could be truly good friends. I wish you all health and wellness, health and love for you and your family members. Thank you very much. Daniel and Emilia.

Hebrew media acknowledged that members of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" treated the detainees well, according to the accounts of those released, which supports the testimony of the elderly "Israeli" detainee, Lifshitz, who was released last month.

The military correspondent for the Hebrew Channel 13, Alon Ben David, said that he communicated with some of the detainees who were released, and they confirmed that Hamas fighters “gathered the members of each kibbutz (settlement) together, which gave them a greater sense of comfort.”

Ben David added, "The detainees were not subjected to violence or insult, and Hamas members tried to provide them with food, painkillers, and their regular medications as much as possible, under dangerous and harsh security conditions underground and inside the tunnels."

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, in response to the Israeli occupation’s violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.

On the other hand, the Israeli occupation forces launched a war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, during which they killed about 17 thousand people, the majority of whom were children and women.

British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta said on Monday that 45% of those with burns at Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip were children, adding that some of the burns were caused by white phosphorus bombs.

The doctor, who worked in the hospital for 40 days during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, added during a press conference in the British capital, London, that between 700 and 900 children are amputees.

“By the fourth or fifth day (of the war), half the list of operations I conducted, about 10-12 cases every day... were children,” he said.

According to Abu Sitta, some of the burns reached the bones of the dead and injured, which indicates the possibility of Israel using white phosphorus bombs.

He said that the hospital was subjected to an Israeli bombardment, "which affected its outskirts or its interior," which led to the ceiling of the operating room collapsing over the heads of the doctors, adding: "Fortunately, I was not injured and was able to go out into the hospital hallway."

He added that 120 children were injured in Al-Shifa Hospital without their families, and their identities were not identified. He said, "Some of them were too young to even know their names."

Abu Sitta said that the hospital's medical staff suffered bitter terror for fear of the presence of one of their family members and children among the dead and injured.

Abu Sitta's statements come amid calls by United Nations human rights experts to conduct independent investigations into "allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity" by all parties since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez the Israeli attacks on the Palestinians, steps to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and efforts to declare a permanent ceasefire.

This came in a phone call on Monday, according to a statement issued by the Turkish Presidency’s Communications Department.

The statement said that Erdogan and Sanchez discussed "the Israeli attacks on the Palestinians, the steps that must be taken to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza without interruption, and efforts to declare a permanent ceasefire and bring lasting peace."

In the call, Erdogan appreciated “the Spanish government’s position against the illegal Israeli attacks on the Palestinians, and its statements regarding recognition of Palestine,” according to the statement.

He explained that Turkey "is ready to assume all kinds of responsibilities, including the role of guarantor and caretaker of lasting peace in the region, and to work with Spain for peace in the region."

On November 24 of this year, a temporary humanitarian truce between Israel and the Palestinian factions entered into force at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) for a period of 4 days, and was extended on Monday for an additional two days, under Qatari-Egyptian-American sponsorship.

The agreement included the exchange of prisoners and the introduction of humanitarian, relief, medical and fuel aid to all areas of the Strip, which is inhabited by about 2.3 million Palestinians.

The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Palestinian Hamas movement announced on Monday evening that they had reached an agreement with the Israeli side regarding extending the humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip for two additional days.

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed Al-Ansari, said on the “X” platform that the State of Qatar “announces that within the framework of the ongoing mediation (between Hamas and Israel), an agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian truce for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip.”

In turn, Hamas announced in a brief statement on Telegram that “it was agreed with the brothers in Qatar and Egypt to extend the temporary humanitarian truce for an additional two days under the same conditions as the previous truce.”

30 years after Oslo, which provided everything to Israel and nothing to the Palestinians, October 7 came to confirm that the only solution is the establishment of the State of Palestine. Is this victory considered the most important in 75 years?

October 7, 2023 witnessed Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood,” which is the name given by the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” to its comprehensive military operation against the occupation army, which has been imposing a stifling siege on the Gaza Strip for 17 years. At exactly six o'clock in the morning local time in Palestine that day, Hamas launched a Palestinian invasion of the cover settlements adjacent to the besieged Gaza Strip, where fighters from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades stormed the towns adjacent to the Strip, after they penetrated the iron wall and crushed the Gaza Division of the Israeli army, Under air cover from thousands of rockets fired from Gaza towards Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the cities of the south.

Amid the state of panic and shock that gripped the Israelis, the spread of video clips and pictures of tanks and armored vehicles belonging to the Israeli army, either burned or under the control of Palestinian resistance fighters, the capture of dozens of Israeli army soldiers and settlers, and complete Palestinian control over settlements, the occupying state declared that it was “in a state of war.” For the first time since the October War of 1973, it is an acknowledgment that the Palestinian resistance attack is a military attack.

What did Hamas' victory over Israel achieve?

Although the brutal Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip is perhaps the most violent and destructive ever, it has not changed anything in the facts that have been established on the ground, most notably that the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas achieved a military victory on October 7, and this victory is the most important of all since the establishment of the Jewish state in the land of Palestine in 1948, according to most experts and analysts.

An analysis by the American magazine Foreign Policy entitled “What Was Hamas Thinking” monitored how the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7 represented a planned strategic coup from the part of Hamas in light of a number of facts that were present on the ground and which Israel has been seeking to consolidate for many years.

Since the Palestinian elections, which were held about 20 years ago in which Hamas won a majority over the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, Israel has worked to contain the Hamas movement and besiege it inside the Gaza Strip until it completely ends the occupation based on the idea of armed resistance and continues the process of swallowing up the occupied territories in Jerusalem and the West Bank through policies of Settlement and displacement.

For nearly two decades, Hamas has tried to present diplomatic initiatives aimed at ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state on the lands of June 4, 1967 (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip), but all the initiatives and endeavors it presented were met with arrogance and rejection by the occupation, amid complicity of entire international community led by the United States of America.

Israel built its strategy in dealing with Hamas and the rest of the resistance factions in Gaza on the basis of its experience with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the “Oslo” process, under the illusion that the “containment” policy is successful and that what Hamas wants is to continue to “rule” Gaza, even in light of it being “the largest open prison in the world", as described by the international community and human rights organizations.

In this context, the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and the military victory that was achieved on that day, which became an established fact despite the attempts of Israel and its supporters in the Joe Biden administration and the rest of the Western capitals to downplay it and label it “terrorism,” came to turn things upside down and demolish all “illusions which surrounded the Palestinians’ desire to be liberated from the Israeli occupation and establish their independent state in exchange for some “economic gains,” as promoted by Israeli leaders, especially Netanyahu, Western leaders, and some Arab leaders as well.

It is necessary to mention here some facts related to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation:

- First: Hamas’s main goal in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was to capture soldiers from the occupation army to force Israel to free the Palestinian prisoners, which Israel delayed for a long time, and was one of the conditions for a ceasefire in the last confrontation in 2021. Hamas has already confirmed that its fighters did not capture Israeli settlers  on October 7, and that these settlers were captured by Gazan civilians and fighters from other factions who were not aware of the flood of Al-Aqsa and crossed the gaps in the iron fence after it was penetrated by Hamas fighters.

- Second: The myth of Israeli security that was promoted by the occupation leaders over the past years has been shattered and the equation that Netanyahu has always marketed specifically to the Israelis, the world and the region has been completely demolished. It is “peace in exchange for peace”, meaning that Israel is not obligated to withdraw from the Palestinian territories in implementation of the Arab initiative “land for peace”, and it has already appeared that Netanyahu is fulfilling his illusions, as normalization with some Arab countries has already begun without any return from Tel Aviv, and the Palestinians have become forgotten. Completely from the accounts of all parties.

Third: Since the formation of the current government in Israel, which has been described in the West and even by Israel as the most extremist government in the history of the Hebrew state, plans to Judaize Jerusalem, plunder the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and expand the settlement policy in the West Bank have accelerated in an unprecedented manner. All of this without any party, neither regional nor international, moving to stop this systematic and accelerated liquidation of what remains of the Palestinians in their land, despite thousands of Western and international reports monitoring this liquidation and describing the occupation as an “apartheid regime without anyone taking action or stopping the oppressive practices

Fourth: The leadership of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas had to either submit to this ugly reality and completely abandon the dream of a Palestinian state and freedom from occupation, or continue the option of armed resistance, but with different conditions that would break the Israeli “containment” policy and impose a new equation that would unite all Palestinians under the banner of national liberation along the lines of the first and second intifadas.

Fifth: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood achieved a decisive victory that some within the ranks of the resistance itself may not have expected. The iron wall and the strongest army in the region collapsed, and Israel trembled to its core. Over the course of about 50 days of “revenge” and committing war crimes and genocide under the eyes of the entire world, Israel achieved nothing significant from a military standpoint, and was forced to negotiate with Hamas to liberate its prisoners through a deal and truce that began on Friday, November 24, for a period of 4 days. All observers, without exception, believe that even if Israel continues its barbaric aggression against civilians in Gaza, and even if it succeeds in reducing Hamas' military capabilities as it hopes, Hamas has become the most important Palestinian figure on the political and strategic level, not only military.

What did Oslo achieve for the Palestinians?

“All the Palestinians got from Oslo is Kentucky,” this is the title of a report by the American magazine Foreign Policy published on September 30, 2023, that is, one week before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, and it monitors the course of the peace process that was supposed to produce An independent Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967. According to those agreements, which were sponsored by Washington, it was assumed that the Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital would have been born in 1999.

The report monitors how, for 30 years, Israel exploited the negotiating path “that it preferred” to achieve its goals of swallowing Palestinian lands and demonizing them on the one hand, and integrating into the Middle East region through recognition and normalization on the part of the rest of the Arab countries, without offering anything in return, neither the Palestinians nor even those who normalized with it.

In 2000, years after the signing of the first Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority headed by Yasser Arafat in Ramallah in the West Bank, the second Intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada) broke out after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque, defying everyone. Then in 2002, Israeli tanks invaded the cities of the West Bank, including Ramallah, and the goal was to eliminate the leadership of the Authority headed by Arafat.

Not only did Israel ignore the agreements signed with the Authority headed by the international community, but it revealed early on its intentions behind entering into “peace” negotiations with the Palestinians, which is to exploit those negotiations to completely eliminate any signs of armed resistance and subject the Palestinians to its conditions, which can be summarized simply under the title “You should completely forget Palestine.”

For 30 years, Israel seemed to be very close to achieving its “wishes.” Gaza, which all the occupation leaders dreamed of and wished would be “swallowed by the sea,” has become completely besieged, and the process of Judaizing Jerusalem and displacing the remaining Palestinians in it is in full swing, and changing the status quo in the mosque in preparation for its demolition is on a fast track, and swallowing up the West Bank or at least most of it through settlement. It has become the most important issue for the  government headed by Netanyahu.

On the other hand, the normalization process began with the Arab countries, and relations were established with the Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020, and preparations were being made in full swing for other Arab countries to join the free normalization train so that Joe Biden would have an important electoral card that would help him maintain a second presidential term during the elections in  November 2024.

The "two-state solution" prevails

But everything has completely changed since October 7, 2023. Palestine has become the talk of the whole world again, and all other issues have disappeared, whether the war in Ukraine, the conflict between America and China, or even climate change issues and others.

Now Palestine and the Israeli occupation have become the most important issue on the international and regional scene. Despite the Israeli propaganda about what happened that day to justify its brutal aggression against the people of Gaza, the main reason for what happened and is happening has become strongly present, even in the statements of the Western leaders most supportive of the occupation, which is the American administration headed by Joe Biden.

It is true that talk about a two-state solution by Biden in particular is sometimes coupled with talk that Hamas “cannot be part of the future,” so how realistic or even possible is achieving this goal? The response came from a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which concludes that “Hamas is part of the new Palestinian spirit that Israel cannot change.” It monitors the discussions currently taking place in Palestinian and Israeli circles regarding the future, not only in Gaza but in the entire Palestinian territories, and at the heart of this conversation is Hamas and its pivotal role.

The conclusion here is that the "two-state solution" has now become the main headline in all axes of discussion, inside the region, outside it and around the world, even though the dust of aggression has not yet settled and no one can predict when or how this round of conflict of wills between the occupation and the resistance will end. There is no doubt that this particular point makes the “Al-Aqsa Flood” the most important Palestinian victory ever since the founding of Israel 75 years ago.

Before October 7, the establishment of a Palestinian state had become like a “talk of the distant past,” and was replaced by talk of normalization, Israel’s integration into the region, and many other issues, none of which include the abuse, displacement, arrests, and martyrdom to which the Palestinians are exposed on a daily basis at the hands of the most extreme governments ever.

source: Arabic Post