The Israeli army announced on Thursday morning that Israeli ground forces carried out a relatively large incursion into the Gaza Strip during Wednesday night.

The Israeli army published a statement with a video clip in which it said: “In preparation for the next combat phases, the Israeli army operated in northern Gaza.”

He continued: "Israeli Defense Forces tanks and infantry struck many Hamas positions, infrastructure, and anti-tank missile launch sites" in the Strip.

The army added: “Since then, the soldiers have left the area and returned to Israeli territory.”

Army Radio said, "The Israeli ground incursion aims to attack Hamas positions."

Israel has spoken more than once about the possibility of launching a ground attack on Gaza, and has mobilized its forces on its border with the besieged Strip.

Gaza is subjected to violent Israeli air attacks, which have killed thousands, and are believed to be a prelude to a ground attack.

For the 20th day in a row, Israeli occupation aircraft continue their intensive raids on the Gaza Strip, targeting a number of buildings, residential complexes, and government institutions, at a time when sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that the continued bombing of buildings in Gaza facilitates the expected ground entry process.

The toll of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, according to the latest statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, amounted to 6,546 martyrs and 17,439 people with various injuries.

Artillery shelling on Al-Bureij Camp and Khan Yunis Camp

Palestinian media reported that the Israeli occupation army continuously bombarded Bureij camp and Khan Yunis camp during the past hours.

18 martyrs in the occupation bombing of the Al-Astal family home in Khan Yunis

Palestinian media reported that the number of martyrs following the occupation bombing of the Al-Astal family home in Khan Yunis had risen to 18.

Two houses were demolished over the heads of their residents in central Gaza City

The Ministry of the Interior in Gaza stated that the occupation aircraft demolished two homes for the Abu Hasira and Abdul Latif families on top of their residents in Al-Nafaq Street, in the center of Gaza City, and spoke of the possibility of martyrs and injuries.

The Ministry indicated that targeting the two houses led to a large fire in a juice factory, a tire warehouse, and a number of stores and shops near the place, and that the fire was being dealt with by fire crews.

In a clear change in the tone of the Turkish official discourse regarding the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, which broke out on October 7, 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, and said that it is not a “terrorist organization,” but rather a national liberation movement of mujahideen, waging a battle to protect its lands and people.

In a speech before his party’s representatives in Parliament on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, Erdogan condemned the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, announcing the cancellation of an official visit to Tel Aviv that was previously scheduled, saying that “Israel took advantage of Turkey’s good intentions, and that he will not go to Israel.” As was planned, he added that the Israeli attacks on Gaza and support for these attacks amount to assassination and mental illness,” referring to Western support for the Israeli occupation.

The Turkish President said that "the tears that the West is shedding for Israel are a kind of fraud," and stressed that his country will continue to use all necessary political, diplomatic and military means, and urged Israel to respond to calls for peace.

He added: "In order to clearly show the truth in a world full of the living dead, Turkey, as a people and a state, is ready to use political, diplomatic, and if necessary military means" to stop this war, without clarifying what these means are, especially military ones. He added, "Since October 7, Israel has been carrying out one of the bloodiest, most brutal, and disgusting attacks in history against innocent people in Gaza."

Türkiye increases the pace of its rhetoric towards Israel.. What are the messages?

There is no doubt that the most prominent thing that Erdogan’s speech revealed about the development of the official Turkish discourse on this crisis was the complete clarification of its position towards the Hamas movement and the defense of Ankara’s relationship with it, as a national liberation movement against the occupation, in contrast to what America seeks to impose on the countries of the region, which is to condemn Hamas and linking its actions to ISIS.

As a translation of these statements, Turkish media said that shortly after Erdogan’s speech, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with leaders of the Hamas movement in Istanbul, to confirm the Turkish position on defending the movement, after Israeli media claimed that Ankara demanded on October 7 the leaders of Hamas to leave Turkey so as not to put Ankara in an awkward position.

At the same time, the American Bloomberg Agency revealed that Turkey decided to suspend plans for cooperation with “Israel” in the field of energy, and that the Turkish Energy Minister decided to cancel a scheduled visit to Tel Aviv, after Erdogan announced the cancellation of his visit to Israel as well.

Since the beginning of the war, Turkish rhetoric during the first days was limited to condemning "the loss of all civilian lives" and emphasizing "contacting with all parties concerned to help end the conflict."

But after Israel's bombing of the Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip, which led to the death of about 500 Palestinians, most of them children and women, the Turkish president said, "The Israeli bombing is a disproportionate response, and amounts to a massacre." He called on Israel to stop its attacks on the Gaza Strip, which amount to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Erdogan also called on the Israeli government to stop its bombing of Palestinian lands. He called on the Palestinians to "stop their harassment against civilian residential communities in Israel." This speech was not similar to his reactions to the Israeli escalation in previous wars, or the crimes in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The Turkish President said in the 2014 Gaza War, in which about 3,000 Palestinians were killed: “The Israelis curse Hitler and curse him day and night because of the Holocaust, but today, we find that the terrorist state of Israel has surpassed Hitler’s atrocities through its operations in Gaza.”

In 2018, when dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed in the activities of the return marches on the Gaza Strip border, Erdogan described Netanyahu as a terrorist, and Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv and declared the Israeli ambassador to it persona non grata.

But Turkey later sought, at the end of 2020, to improve its relations with a number of regional parties, with which its relations had witnessed tension and decline over the past years, including Israel.

Ankara decided to release the Israeli couple detained in Istanbul and open a new page with Israel. In return, the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, visited Turkey amid a rich official reception.

Last September, Erdogan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where they discussed developing political and economic relations, according to what was announced at the time in a statement by the Turkish presidency.

What means did Erdogan threaten to use against Israel?

Erdogan, during his last speech in which he launched an attack on Israel for committing a war of genocide in Gaza, said that Turkey was ready to use “political, diplomatic, and if necessary military means” to stop the war, but the Turkish President did not clarify what these means were, especially military ones.

Diplomatic and political options are available to the Turks, and they have been used before, such as canceling some joint economic or political agreements between the two parties, which is what happened now by suspending plans for cooperation with “Israel” in the field of energy, according to Bloomberg, or expelling the Israeli ambassador and withdrawing the Turkish ambassador from Tel Aviv on For example, or putting pressure on Washington and the West with several cards, such as withdrawing the Turkish Parliament’s authorization for Sweden to join NATO.

But Erdogan's threat to use "military means" is the first of its kind, and unprecedented in official discourse. Therefore, there is no doubt that this sentence needs an explanation from the Turkish side, as this option can only be imagined across the Mediterranean, according to analysts.

Turkey is currently conducting military maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea that have been ongoing for about a week. Is it possible, for example, that these maneuvers will develop to put pressure on the Israeli or American side there, as Washington is moving aircraft carriers and military battleships to the coasts of occupied Palestine? Nobody knows that.

Source: Arabis Post

On Wednesday, October 25, 2023, US President Joe Biden denied his request to Israel to postpone its ground attack in the Gaza Strip, after the American Wall Street Journal quoted American and Israeli officials as saying that Tel Aviv had agreed to a request from the United States. By postponing the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip until America deploys its air defenses in the region.

Biden said in a press conference that what he pointed out during his discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was that, “If the prisoners held by the resistance in Gaza can be safely released, then this is what we must do.”

The American newspaper indicated earlier that the Pentagon is striving to deploy approximately 12 air defense systems in the region, including American forces operating in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. To protect it from rockets and missiles.

She added that American officials convinced the Israelis to postpone the ground invasion of Gaza, until those defensive pieces were in place, as early as this week.

Threats facing Washington

American officials said that the threats facing American forces constitute a serious concern, and the US military and other officials believe that American forces will be targeted by various armed groups once the ground incursion into Gaza begins.

The newspaper quoted American officials as saying that, so far, at least 13 such attacks have occurred in Iraq and Syria, using drones and missiles, which led to the killing of an American contractor and the destruction of an American drone.

Defense officials also said that at least 24 soldiers were wounded in Syria and 10 others in Iraq, almost all of them with minor injuries.

This news was confirmed by the British newspaper The Financial Times on Wednesday evening, October 25, 2023, when it said that the United States is taking advantage of Israel’s postponement of the start of its ground invasion that it is preparing against the Gaza Strip, in order to accelerate the flow of its defense systems to the region, amid growing fears that... Iran and its affiliated factions will escalate their attacks against US forces and allied interests once the invasion begins, according to officials.

Frank McKenzie, who commanded US forces in the Middle East between 2019 and 2022, said: “It will be easier for us to deter them as more forces flow into the arena. Time is our ally here.”

The United States estimates that its move to deploy more military hardware to the region over the past two weeks - including the arrival of two new aircraft carrier strike groups in the Mediterranean - has helped keep Iran out of the fray. But officials say Tehran's proxies still pose a formidable threat to American assets and forces in the region.

A senior American official said: “What we are witnessing is disturbing. We have indications that there are groups in the region that have a desire for escalation, and that is why we have strengthened our military presence and conveyed a message that we have strengthened our military presence.”

Many officials said the United States was particularly concerned about Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is backed by Iran.

Officials explained that Hezbollah's movements represented an ominous sign of escalation even before Israel carried out its invasion of Gaza.

“The next opportunity that might present itself is a massive ground incursion into Gaza, because that would involve a lot of resources and put a lot of focus [there],” said retired Gen. Joseph Votel, who led US Central Command from 2016 to 2019.

It is true that the Biden administration's assessments indicate that Tehran does not want to confront the United States nor Israel directly, but it is expected to continue activating its regional proxies in order to launch attacks in its place. The officials said that Iran, in addition to supporting and encouraging attacks against the United States and its bases, in some cases facilitates their implementation.

“I think they don't want to get involved with us, and we certainly don't want to get involved with them,” said US Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, who has received numerous briefings on the ongoing conflict and the US response.

American officials said they were particularly concerned about escalating threats against members of American forces in Iraq and Lebanon, where they had requested the departure of everyone except emergency personnel. The Pentagon and the State Department are working on preparing contingency plans for more widespread evacuation operations for American citizens in this country and other countries in the region.

But Washington's allies in the Gulf, who depend on the United States for defense, may also be in a weak position.

Biden spoke with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday, October 24, “and stressed that the United States fully supports defending US allies against terrorist threats, whether they are state or non-state actors.”

Former and current US officials said Washington and Tehran were climbing what they called an “escalation ladder,” with high potential for miscalculations or misunderstandings.

“We are one tragic incident away, one moment away from climbing another rung of the ladder further than we want to, and I think we were very aware of that,” Votel said.

Officials believe that Tehran feels it has a lot to gain from enabling proxy movements against Israel and the United States and openly encouraging and supporting these movements, even if it is not fully involved in the conflict.

“These moves strengthen Iran’s influence in the region, potentially limit U.S. influence and complicate the plans of moderate Arab states targeting an early rapprochement with Israel,” said Norman Rolle, a former senior U.S. intelligence official who focuses on Middle East affairs.

He explained that Iran and its proxies also believe that they are able to launch attacks to some degree without risking the situation turning into an all-out conflict.

Rule explained: "There is a widespread feeling in the region that Washington is unlikely to use its power against them, for fear that this might risk triggering a multi-year conflict, such as Iraq or Afghanistan."\

Source: Arabic post

On Wednesday, October 25, 2023, Russia and China used their veto power in the UN Security Council against a draft resolution drafted by America regarding the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, while a competing draft drafted by Russia failed to obtain the minimum number of votes. .

The American draft resolution sought to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by calling for short truces to allow the entry of aid. The UAE voted no, while 10 members voted in favor of the draft resolution, and Brazil and Mozambique abstained from voting.

The council then voted on a draft resolution drafted by Russia calling for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. Only Russia, China, the UAE, and Gabon voted in favor of the draft resolution, while nine members abstained from voting, and the United States and Britain voted against.

In order for the decision to be issued by the Council, it needs at least nine votes and no veto by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

For his part, the Chinese delegate to the Security Council said, "The American draft resolution does not mention that Palestine has been occupied for a long time."

He added: "We must take into account the security concerns of both sides, not just the Israeli side."

He also continued: “We oppose the American project’s failure to call on the parties to stop the indiscriminate and unequal use of force.”

Security Council attempts

This vote comes after two failed votes in the council last week. Only five members voted in favor of a Russian draft resolution on October 16, and then the United States vetoed a Brazilian draft resolution on October 18, which received 12 votes in favor.

On Saturday, the United States presented a draft proposal that initially shocked some diplomats, with its frankness in saying that Israel has the right to defend itself and demanding that Iran stop exporting weapons to armed groups.

The United States subsequently toned down the tone of the draft overall, eliminating direct references to Iran and Israel's right to self-defense.

But Russia said on Tuesday that it could not support the US action plan, and put forward its own proposal.

By Nazir Mjally 

Despite the Israeli consensus on "the necessity of carrying out a wild invasion of the Gaza Strip", whether this is in the political or military leadership or even at the popular level, there are clear differences about the price that will cost it and the results that will result in it.

And after it became clear that the American administration prevented the postponement of this invasion until it ends in the resolution of the prisoner's issue, and that European governments in the majority prefer to retreat from the ground invasion, the Israelis are engaged in wide discussions about this invasion and its desired results in exchange for the expected, desired and existing results.

The majority supports harmony (and there are those who call it obedience) with the American position, which is prohibited so far. According to crossed sources in Washington and Tel Aviv, Israel has informed the United States agreeing to demand and freezing the ground attack to another date, and "but without giving up the goal of liquidating (Hamas)."

This decision is due to several reasons, first, is Israel really ready for such an operation, and will this be an adventure or a gambling, and is Israel able to bear the price of this invasion in the event of a serious resistance from "Hamas" and the rest of the factions? It is said that the general, who was sent by President Joe Biden, along with a team of experience in fighting in the Middle East, sitting at the headquarters of the military leadership in Tel Aviv, studying military plans, examining the preparations made by Hamas, and asking difficult questions. They want this attack to succeed, if it was approved.

Second, Israel should guarantee that the ground process does not lead to sabotage on the great efforts made by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, and several other Arab and foreign countries, to reach a prisoner exchange deal with the least possible loss in Israel. This is a reason that the majority of the Israelis see "in a" face ", and the majority of the Israeli prisoners and with them the majority of newspapers, which published opening articles calling for a bragging situation that rejects any such deal, and indifference to the expected" Hamas "celebrations when Israel pays the price and release thousands of prisoners .

The former Israeli army chief of staff, Dan Halutz, said he was ready to support an exchange deal in which Israeli prisoners return to freedom in exchange for the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. He added, “Netanyahu has agreed to release 1027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. On this rate, we will have to release 20,000 Palestinians. What is the problem to release 9,000 prisoners currently in Israeli prisons?

The third reasons for agreeing to postpone the land invasion of Gaza, warning against the expansion of the war to the north, with Hezbollah and perhaps with Iranian militias in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and perhaps Iran itself. I have already heard such threats and this time may be serious, and the American forces want to be ready for such a war and may participate in them directly. Today it is not ready yet.

Dr. Tafi Barail, the editor of the Arab Affairs in the newspaper "Haaretz": The public demand to release all the kidnapped now "and at any cost" is a deserved demand, provided that it is accompanied by the call to "destroy (Hamas) once and forever", it is an ambitious ambition, It causes disappointing collision of will. What do we know about the price of liberating all the kidnapped? "Hamas" has not yet submitted all its requests, and it can only be assumed that she wants, in return, "only", to release all its security prisoners and other factions, including those who were arrested in the last battle. Perhaps you will also demand the suspension of the land attack and the approval of a long ceasefire, pumping money to Gaza in order to rebuild it from the old and new destruction and obtain international guarantees to implement the agreements? "Because (at any cost) also means (abdication of the demand to destroy" Hamas "and erase it from above the face of the earth).

Barail adds that the destruction of "Hamas" means tens of thousands of soldiers who will enter the Strip, and tanks that quickly make the road in the narrow alleys, accompanied by fighters who purify homes and cellars one by one, and every minute the weapons warehouses that were emptied on humans are changed, some of them are sabotage Others are suspicious and many of them "have no connection", including children. It will pass a week, perhaps a month and perhaps more, and there will be no pressure; Because the permission was given to us. How many soldiers will be killed and injured? How many of them will remain disabled? How many bereaved families will join the miserable menu that dug on October 7? What about the kidnapped, how many of them will survive during the attack?

He saw the liberation of Arab affairs, that Israel has no realistic plan, not only for the next day, but even for the coming years, unless it is preparing for the first Lebanese war scenario that lasted 18 years after the victory over the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the destruction of its infrastructure. Because even if Gaza is occupied again and the promise was fulfilled and the revenge is completed, and Hamas may disappear from Gaza, but it will remain with leaders, leaders, infrastructure, many weapons and capabilities, to the side of Israel, as in Lebanon and Syria.

Today, Wednesday, US President Joe Biden reiterated his belief in Israel to defend its citizens, but at the same time he indicated the necessity of "protecting innocent civilians in Gaza who were victims of the conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement."

Biden also renewed, during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi, the call for a two -state solution as soon as the current conflict calms down.

He stressed that "there is no return to the situation that was located on October 6 between Israel and the Palestinians." The US President said: "I was annoyed by the settlers' attacks on the Palestinians in the West Bank."

He added, "The attacks of extremist settlers should stop on the Palestinians in places of them."

As he called Israel to adhere to the laws of war and do everything in its power to protect innocent civilians, he said: “We have to remember that (Hamas) does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people and hide behind civilians.”

Biden targeted the Israeli settlers in the West Bank with a rare reprimand, and repeated his calls for a solution to the establishment of two states as soon as the current conflict calms down.

Biden expressed his belief that the Hamas attack was caused by the progress made in integrating Israel into the region, and he said: "The next stage must be represented in a two -state solution, and there is a need to work on a greater integration of Israel."

In addition, Biden indicated that he had not asked Israel to postpone its ground attack in Gaza.

"It is their decision and I did not ask for (postponing it) ... What I referred to with him is that if these (hostages) can be taken out in peace, this is what we must do." Biden stressed that he "does not trust" the outcome of the dead, announced by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip of Hamas.

Those who promote the "inevitability" of Israel's success in achieving the goals it set for the war stress that without thinking and planning for the "next day," the greatest possibility is that Israel will find itself in a reality no less bad than October 7, 2023...

In the midst of the Israeli consensus on the war against the Gaza Strip, and on the necessity of retaliation against the Hamas movement and the Palestinian resistance for the general outcome of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, there are few voices in Israel that rebel against this consensus and side with reality, and not with the image drawn about it by the political and military leaders and strikers. With their sword, especially in the media.

However, from these few voices we can learn a lot about this reality that is being circumvented. Aside from general or constructive formulations, what is meant here can be represented by addressing two of the many areas that this war sparked and continues to raise great controversy over.

The first area relates to the ground military operation in the Gaza Strip, which is being delayed in carrying out, according to what is being reported by Israeli and foreign media these days. While most media reports and military analysts are preoccupied with the reasons for this reluctance, and what they perhaps refer to as a discussion between the political and military levels and between Israel and the United States, which for the first time in Israel’s history participates in decision-making related to the war in general, and its military operations in particular, it is only concerned with what We know the name that is being circulated for it, which is “the maneuver,” and the military connotations it means that we do not have the necessary means to read, as well as the possibilities that it will succeed in achieving the goals set for it by the Military Ministerial Council, most notably undermining the military and authoritarian capabilities of the Hamas movement, and creating a new security governance system. In the Gaza Strip.

This preoccupation also points to another reason for this reluctance, which is taking into account the danger of combustion in the north, and perhaps in the entire Middle East. Despite all this, it must be noted that these few voices stress, in what may be considered an out-of-touch tweet, the necessity of not underestimating the capabilities of the Palestinian resistance, the depth of its thinking, and the possibility that it has been preparing to confront such an operation for more than a decade, including This would turn it into a deadly trap for members of the Israeli army.

According to Yossi Melman, one of the most prominent analysts of security affairs in Israel, all Israeli scenarios related to the aim of undermining Hamas' capabilities can only be described as pipe dreams. He is not satisfied with this conclusion only in its generality, but also goes into the details of these capabilities, which indicate, according to what he writes, that the movement possesses an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles that guarantee it daily launches towards “Israeli territory” at great rates for two consecutive months, not to mention the presence of Armed forces number, according to his estimates, no less than 20,000 fighters, in addition to tens of thousands of other people who have work and employment relations with the Hamas authority in the Gaza Strip and who form a support for the fighters.

The second area is related to the other goal of the Israeli war, which was formulated by the Military Ministerial Council in the phrase: creating a new security governance system in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, it must be noted that even those who promote the “inevitability” of Israel’s success in achieving the goals it set for the war, stress that without thinking and planning for “the next day,” the greatest possibility is that Israel will find itself in a reality no less bad than October 7. October 1, 2023, starting with continued control over the sector, leading to “the emergence of a government vacuum that could be filled by extremist parties from different regions in the Middle East.”

In all cases, the result is a return to “drowning in the Gazan mire.” On the other hand, voices outside the consensus confirm that what Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” demonstrated is that Palestinian awareness of truth and resistance is constant and cannot be changed, just as the Americans failed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore, what is required are realistic goals that are not those set by the government.

The Israeli occupation army continues, for the 19th day in a row, the war on Gaza, amid an escalation of warplane raids in the bombardment of civilians, with missiles, explosives and bombs, as their weight reached 12 thousand tons in total, which is equivalent to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The death toll from the occupation's aggression against the Gaza Strip rose to 6,546 martyrs, including 2,704 children, 1,584 women, and 364 elderly people, in addition to more than 17,000 wounded. While two missiles were fired towards Haifa and Eilat, the first exploded in the sky of the Carmel area and the other fell in an open area, coinciding with the sounding of a warning siren at an Israeli Air Force base.

The Israeli occupation army continues, for the 19th day in a row, the war on Gaza, amid an escalation of warplane raids in bombing civilians with missiles, explosives and bombs, as their weight reached 12 thousand tons in total, which is equivalent to the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The occupation continues to target homes and residential facilities in various areas of the besieged Gaza Strip, raising the death toll, especially among children and women.

This comes amid the occupation army's continuous hints that it will soon launch a ground invasion, while the humanitarian situation in Gaza is witnessing an unprecedented catastrophe, with the announcement of the collapse of the health system.

Certain political forces in the West have proven incapable of producing a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for a ceasefire and settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the Russian TASS news agency reported, citing comments by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Zakharova said that the failure of the UN continues despite the fact that thousands of Palestinian children have been slaughtered in the Gaza Strip.

In her comments, made in a Sputnik Radio broadcast on UNICEF data, which confirmed that over 2,300 Palestinian children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, Zakharova noted the urgent need to approve a UNSC resolution on the matter, TASS reported.

“This is the most obvious and rather simple thing to do in this situation: simply to produce a statement, a resolution, a document with a unified call for a ceasefire, settling the situation and so on,” she said.

“Even these numbers cannot compel certain political forces in the West to come to their senses and realize what is going on,” the diplomat said.

The US, alone with its western allies have blocked all attempts to allow for a UNSC resolution that condemns the targeting of civilians and demand an immediate ceasefire for humanitarian reasons.

According to UNICEF, more than 2,300 children have died and over 5,300 sustained wounds in the Gaza Strip during the 19-days war.

Israel occupies Palestinian territories since 1967. It has imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip for nearly 17 years and has been increasing its illegal settlement constructions in the West Bank.

UN envoys have reported that Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank in the last two years is unprecedented for nearly two decades.

According to the statement by the UNICEF, more than 400 children are being killed or wounded daily in incessant Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave.

(TASS, PC)

Qatar warned Wednesday, through Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari, that any Israeli ground invasion of Gaza would complicate efforts to release the hostages. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) detained more than 200 people during its October 7 attack on southern Israel. Qatar is leading an open dialogue with the Israeli authorities and Hamas, which has enabled the release of four detainees so far, including two Israeli women on Monday.

Al-Ansari stated that Qatar's most important priority is the safe return of detainees, which requires that they not be harmed in the exchange of fire.

Al-Ansari added, "Qatar is focusing its mediation efforts on the release of detainees, which is separate from the broader discussions to reduce the escalation."

For his part, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said that some progress has been achieved in negotiations regarding detainees in the Gaza Strip.

Sheikh Mohammed, who also holds the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs, added during a press conference with his Turkish counterpart in Doha, that he hopes to achieve a breakthrough in the release of detainees “soon.”

Qatar, in coordination with the United States, is leading mediation talks between Hamas and Israeli officials regarding the release of detainees at a time when Israel is preparing to launch a ground attack on the Gaza Strip.

Sheikh Mohammed said that the number of children killed in the Gaza Strip greatly exceeded the number of children killed in the Ukraine war, but there was not a similar reaction in the two crises.

He stressed that the only way to reach a peaceful solution in Gaza is to keep communication channels open.

France 24/Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the return of Israeli prisoners and hostages in the Gaza Strip constitutes one of the goals of the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip, stressing that the occupation army intends to invade Gaza by land, claiming that decisions related to the war are taken by consensus, and denied that there were any considerations. politics of these decisions.

Netanyahu reiterated the goal set by his government for the war on Gaza, which is “to eliminate the Hamas movement and kill all its members,” threatening all members of the movement “underground or above” that they are “doomed to death,” and said that decisions related to the war are made by consensus. Between him and the Defense Minister, Yoav Galant, and the former Defense Minister, Benny Gantz.

Benitenahu confirmed that the “War Cabinet” had taken a decision to launch a ground attack on the Gaza Strip, stressing that the time and timing of the operation had been determined in agreement with the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Herzi Halevy, and added, “I will not specify when, how and how much. I will not mention in detail the set of considerations that the public does not know.” most of it".

Netanyahu's statements come in light of reports of Israeli agreement to postpone the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip for a period not exceeding a few days, so that Washington can send missile defenses to the region, and to exhaust mediation efforts to release Israeli hostages held by resistance factions in the Gaza Strip.

Diplomats said that the UN Security Council will vote later today, Wednesday, on two draft resolutions from the United States and Russia regarding humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip. While the American draft resolution calls for temporary periods during which a ceasefire will be established in order to allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip, Russia wants a humanitarian ceasefire. The 15-member council is scheduled to vote at 19:00 GMT.

At least 9 votes must be approved, and no veto power may be used by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China, in order for a decision to be issued by the Council. It is not clear to what extent either draft of the proposals enjoys the minimum required support, which raises questions about the possibilities of Russia and the United States using it. Veto power.

This vote comes after the failure of two votes in the Council last week. Only 5 members voted in favor of a Russian draft resolution on October 16, and then the United States vetoed a Brazilian draft resolution on October 18 that received 12 supportive votes. Last Saturday, the United States presented a draft proposal that initially shocked some diplomats with its frankness in saying that Israel has the right to defend itself and to demand that Iran stop exporting weapons to its allied armed groups.

The United States subsequently moderated the overall tone of the draft, eliminating direct references to Iran and Israel’s right to self-defense. But Russia said - yesterday, Tuesday - that it could not support the American action plan and put forward its own draft resolution. In a position similar to the American position, a spokesman for the President of the United States said: British Minister Rishi Sunak said that his country may discuss reaching a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the arrival of aid, but it does not want a comprehensive ceasefire, because it will only serve the interests of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

The spokesman continued, saying, “Periods of humanitarian truce, which are temporary and limited in scope, can be an operational tool, and it is clear that it is something that we can and have been discussing.” Israel rejects both the Russian and American proposals, and considers that “Hamas will exploit” the opportunity for humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip and “Post new threats to Israeli civilians.”

Yesterday, Tuesday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, and Jordan called on the Council to take serious action to establish an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that it would stop its operations in Gaza today due to a fuel shortage, while the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that more than a third of hospitals in Gaza and about two-thirds of primary health care clinics closed their doors due to damage or lack of fuel. Fuel.

Source: Al Jazeera

A number of family members of Al-Jazeera colleague Wael Al-Dahdouh, including his wife, son, and daughter, were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house to which they were displaced in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Our colleague Al-Dahdouh was distinguished by his accurate coverage of the Israeli bombing and the numerous massacres it is committing in its ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip, and he conveyed on the ground the extent of the destruction and the clear targeting of defenseless civilians in the Strip.

Al Jazeera commented that targeting the Dahdouh family comes as a form of Israeli revenge against Al Jazeera as a result of its continuous coverage of the Israeli war and the massacres it commits during it against the Palestinians besieged in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Al Jazeera Channel

Today, Wednesday, Israeli aircraft launched an air strike targeting Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria, causing material damage, according to what was reported by Syrian official television.

A Syrian military source said, "The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport," noting that damage was caused to the airport's runway.

For its part, the Israeli army refused to comment on whether it targeted the airport today, which has been out of service since October 22 following a previous Israeli missile attack, according to what was reported by Reuters.

The Damascus and Aleppo airports - the two main airports in Syria - were out of service - last Sunday - as a result of a simultaneous Israeli bombardment that resulted in human losses, according to what the Syrian official media reported at the time. The Syrian Ministry of Transport announced “the diversion of scheduled flights through the Damascus and Aleppo airports (the arrival of In Daraa, 8 Syrian soldiers were killed and 7 others were injured, at dawn today, Wednesday, as a result of an Israeli raid that targeted military points in the Daraa countryside, southwest of the country, according to what was reported by the Syrian official media. The agency reported. Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted a military source as saying that the Israeli enemy launched an air strike from the occupied Syrian Golan at 1:45 a.m. today, killing 8 soldiers, wounding 7 others, and inflicting material losses on the military points that were bombed.

For years, Israel has launched air strikes targeting positions of the Syrian forces and what it describes as Iranian and Hezbollah targets. These raids have increased recently, since the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza launched Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, in response to the occupation’s attacks. And the settlers against the Palestinian people.

Source: Reuters

It has been more than two weeks now since another war in Gaza started. More than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed by relentless Israeli bombardment and 1,400 Israelis died in the attack by the armed Palestinian resistance group Hamas on southern Israel.

Watching the media coverage of these events, I have been struck by the stark difference between how the killing of civilians has been covered on both sides.

Many Western media outlets insist on highlighting the immorality of killing and brutalizing Israeli civilians, as Hamas has undoubtedly done, while soft-pedalling the immorality of the Israeli military’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians by carpet bombing the Gaza Strip.

In one remarkable interview on BBC Newsnight, when Husam Zomlot, the Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, said that seven members of his family had been killed by Israeli bombs, the reaction of his interviewer was to offer perfunctory condolences and immediately proclaim that “you cannot condone the killing of civilians in Israel”.

Zomlot had not offered his personal tragedy as justification for Hamas atrocities but as an answer to a direct question about what happened to them. Yet having done so, he now found himself being asked to condemn, not those who murdered them, but those who killed others.

It is worth noting that in all the interviews I watched of Israelis who had similarly lost loved ones, I have not come across a single one where the victims have been asked whether they condoned the actions of their government or disavowed the labelling of Palestinians by the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as “human animals”. None have been asked to condemn what some are controversially describing as an unfolding genocide and the expulsion of civilians in Gaza.

“We are preconditioned not to see Palestinian humanity because colonialism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia are still the dominant lens through which states, institutions, people, and media in the West view the world (although geopolitical interests are, of course, also at play),” editorializes The New Humanitarian, contrasting the glorification of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion with the delegitimization of Palestinian struggle against invasion, dispossession and ethnic cleansing.

Few outlets have bothered to ask how over two million people came to be packed into a tiny strip or discuss the 16-year blockade that has turned the territory into what is widely acknowledged as an open-air prison.

These inadequacies and distortions in the media coverage of the war in Gaza reflect a reality that is often obfuscated by claims of “journalistic objectivity”. The truth is, journalists’ discretion over what is fit to publish has never been absolute; it has always been circumscribed by the values and culture of the society in which they operate.

The late American media ethicist, John Calhoun Merrill, asserted that “a nation’s journalism cannot exceed the limits permitted by the society; on the other hand, it cannot lag very far behind”.

Recognizing how culture interacts with journalism is the key to understanding these biases, many of which are rooted in history. What we are seeing in the coverage of the war in Gaza is, in the first instance, a demonstration of the largely unacknowledged societal limits imposed on journalism.

There is obvious censorship. Opinions that humanize Palestinians or that deviate from the official line of unconditional support for Israel have been suppressed. There have been clampdowns on protests and expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians, threats to arrest people for flying the Palestinian flag, and attempts by Big Tech companies to remove or shadow-ban pro-Palestinian content.

A report by Al Jazeera’s Listening Post program suggested that editors in US newsrooms were discouraging any attempts to provide background context to the Hamas attacks as that would be unpalatable to audiences.

However, censorship is not a sufficient explanation. As Merrill said, the journalism “cannot lag very far behind” the society. Journalism ethics and the moral principles and values that inform them do not belong to journalists alone. Rather they are reflections of society-wide expectations from the media.

In essence, the reporting on Israel and Gaza tells us more about the journalists themselves and the cultures they spring from, than about the events in the region.

Historically, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have been a well-documented feature of Western cultural thought. Jews were once racialized and othered in much the same way Muslims are today, routinely subjected to pogroms. In the aftermath of the horrors of the Holocaust, however, anti-Semitism was widely denounced in Western culture as unacceptable and abhorrent.

By contrast, anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiments in the West were never censured in the same way. Over the past few decades, they have been further fueled by the US-led “war on terror”, which Israel has used to frame its own conflict with the Palestinians.

In this context, it is not surprising that many Westerners seem to believe that acknowledging the humanity of Jews has to go hand-in-hand with the dehumanization of those coded as Muslims or Arabs (the categories are almost always conflated in the Western imagination).

The insistence on Israel’s “right” to defend itself even in the face of undeniable atrocities that date back to its establishment reflects the Western perception that Arab civilian deaths are an acceptable price for Israeli security and peace of mind.

By contrast, even an attempt to mention the context in which Israeli civilian deaths occurred is considered an outrageous move – as the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself has recently discovered.

Western media reports reflect this awful cultural calculus – the one-sided demand for condemnation, the individualization and humanization of the Israeli tragedy are juxtaposed next to the representation of Palestinian tragedy in passive language and as suffered by undifferentiated masses.

The calculus is also apparent in the imagery of death. Social media and TV reports are inundated with graphic images of Palestinian dead but relatively few images of dead Israelis. Words and descriptions such as “beheaded babies” are presumed sufficient to articulate the horror of Israeli death. The horror of Palestinian death, however, needs to be established with gory imagery.

Audiences are constantly reminded that Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Western governments, but not that human rights groups and the UN have described Israel as an apartheid regime.

Criticism of Israeli actions, or even the attempt to humanize their victims, are coded as expressions of anti-Semitism, which carries a far heavier cultural penalty than anti-Arab sentiment.

That said, it is important to keep in mind that culture is itself a collectivizing and muddy concept and it should not be assumed that cultural concepts are held or accepted by everyone who identifies as part of the culture.

The huge demonstrations in support of Palestinians that are happening in Europe and North America are an example of this. The point though is that culture does influence media attitudes, ethics and framing as well as limits on what journalists can do.

Media practitioners need to take cognizance of the facts and rethink ethics and professional practices forged in days when journalists reported the news largely to audiences who looked like and thought like them.

Today, when news reports are instantly broadcast around the world, cultural blindspots can manifest as unethical practices, including as justification for genocide and ethnic cleansing. They should listen to and take seriously the repeated complaints about their reporting and framing. That requires a degree of self-awareness that sadly, many have so far failed to demonstrate.

By Patrick Gathara Communications consultant, writer, and award-winning political cartoonist based in Nairobi.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, confirmed - in a press conference held today, Wednesday - that more than 7,000 sick and wounded people need urgent surgical intervention after the health system in Gaza was completely out of service.

Al-Qudra revealed that hospitals in Gaza have become unable to provide health services to the sick and wounded who fall as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombing.

He said that the international community did not take seriously the distress calls launched by the Ministry of Health in Gaza since the start of the Israeli aggression, which accelerated the collapse of the health system in the Strip.

Al-Qudra pointed out that hospitals in Gaza have turned into shelter corridors whose corridors, departments and courtyards are filled with displaced people, which hinders the provision of safe medical services and exposes the lives of the wounded to more complications. He warned that those displaced to hospitals seeking protection and safety suffer from an unsafe environment in which there is neither sufficient water nor Personal hygiene, which makes diseases and epidemics spread among them quickly.

Al-Qudra called for urgent interventions to save the collapsed health system, open the Rafah land crossing, and ensure the flow of medical aid and fuel, in addition to the immediate entry of medical delegations.

Israel launches continuous raids on the Gaza Strip after the painful blow it received at the hands of the Palestinian resistance, which launched Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” at dawn on Saturday, October 7, 2023.

Source: Al Jazeera

The Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that the attack on the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, by Israel reflects an open attempt at terrorism and moral and political blackmail, stressing that the man expressed, during his speech before the Security Council yesterday, a sound moral and principled position. It is consistent with his duties and the trust he bears at the head of the international organization.

The Secretary-General also confirmed, in a statement prior to his departure from New York to return to Cairo after his participation in the Security Council session devoted to discussing developments in the situation in Gaza, that Guterres’ speech was an expression of international law and international humanitarian law, which represents the foundation of the work of the United Nations institution, and that he fully agrees with What it said was: “At a crucial moment like this, the principles must be clear, especially with regard to protecting civilians and ensuring their livelihood.”

He added that the shameful attack against Guterres aims to silence every voice that speaks out the bright truth that he expressed in his speech, as the Palestinian people have been living in a stifling occupation for 56 years and their land is gradually being devoured by colonies.

The Secretary-General called on everyone to support Guterres in the face of the fascist attack he is being subjected to from Israel, with the aim of silencing his voice and blackmailing him.

In a recent development, The New York Times has conducted an in-depth analysis of the Gaza hospital explosion, calling into question Israeli Occupation allegations regarding the incident in which hundreds were killed. The investigation centers around a video that has been pivotal in the Israeli Occupation and American narrative, suggesting that a misfired Palestinian rocket was the cause of the explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. However, The NYT's findings present a different perspective.

According to their detailed visual examination, the missile depicted in the video is likely not connected to the hospital explosion. Instead, it detonated in the sky approximately two miles away from the hospital, unrelated to the tragic incident. This revelation complicates the straightforward narrative put forth by Israeli Occupation officials.

US intelligence agencies have offered their assessment, indicating that the video captures a Palestinian rocket undergoing a "catastrophic motor failure" before part of it landed in the hospital grounds. However, uncertainties persist, and The NYT's findings challenge the widely disseminated narrative, emphasizing the complexity of discerning facts in the midst of the ongoing conflict.

Last week, in a comprehensive digital investigation, Al Jazeera uncovered evidence refuting the Israeli Occupation army's claim that the strike on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza resulted from a failed rocket launch.

By meticulously analyzing video footage of rockets launched from both the Israeli Occupation and Gaza around the time of the hospital strike, Al Jazeera's digital investigation team identified four Israeli Occupation airstrikes on Gaza targeting the vicinity of the hospital.

Furthermore, two video clips displayed a series of rocket launches from Gaza, all of which were intercepted by the Israeli Occupation's automatic air defense system, the Iron Dome.

They also referenced two video images showing a series of rocket launches from Gaza but the video analysis shows that they were all intercepted by the Iron Dome.

The rocket that the Israeli Occupation claimed to be responsible for the hospital strike was captured on video at 6:59 pm being intercepted by the Iron Dome.

Upon close examination, the rocket is seen being completely destroyed in the sky.

According to Al Jazeera's thorough analysis of all available feeds and videos, this particular rocket was intercepted and was the final one launched from Gaza before the hospital was bombed.

Five seconds after the interception, the live stream captured an explosion in Gaza, followed by a larger explosion two seconds later.

This sequence confirms that the strike on the hospital was not caused by a failed rocket launch, as asserted by the Israeli Occupation army.

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) distanced themselves from the hospital strike, attributing it to the Islamic Jihad organization.

Additionally, the IOF released an audio recording claiming it features a conversation between two members of the resistance group affirming that the hospital strike resulted from one of their rockets.

Also Read: Hundreds killed in 'Israeli strike' on Gaza Baptist Hospital

Hundreds of people were killed on October 17 in an Israeli Occupation airstrike on the Baptist Hospital in the central Gaza Strip, as reported by Roya's correspondent.

The correspondent in the region stated that the hospital was sheltering displaced individuals who had left their homes in the northern part of the strip after receiving orders from the Israeli Occupation.

A security negligence of this magnitude requires immediate lessons to be drawn, but for some reason, what is currently required is to postpone the investigations into the “Gaza envelope” disaster until another day. This is a mistake. It is possible to wait for a formal investigation committee and the resignation of high-level officials at the end of the fighting, but drawing preliminary lessons is necessary to prevent additional disasters in the future.

The army and Shin Bet will examine intelligence failures in assessments and in analyzing the facts. The public has no way of knowing who was aware of this there, who was not aware, and how the decision was made to allocate 30 battalions to the West Bank, compared to only 4 battalions to the Gaza Strip. There are speculations regarding the composition of the current extremist coalition, but even if they are unfounded, this does not exempt the security establishment from providing answers regarding the reason for the reduction of forces in the Gaza Division, and the fragility of the first line of defense. Lessons must now be learned regarding defensive doctrine, because the reality on the northern front changed radically overnight, as well as in the West Bank, and this could happen in other sectors.

On the political level, drawing lessons is no less important. During the last years of Benjamin Netanyahu's rule, the country witnessed a serious political crisis that weakened its institutions, including the security establishment. At the root of the problem is Netanyahu, the criminal defendant, who is waging a struggle for survival, dragging with him his supporters, his party, and his partners on the right and in the Haredi parties. He is the one who turned everyone who did not stand to his right into an enemy: the judicial system, the police, a section of the media, the leaders of the security services, and opponents of the judicial coup. In parallel, he improved the position of the sycophants around him - petty, bad and weak people, to whom he entrusted extremely important functions. They had one mission: to defend it, even if the price was the destruction of state institutions.

They succeeded in their mission, the institutions were destroyed. The commanders of the army and Shin Bet bear great responsibility for the negligence, but any investigative committee cannot ignore the atmosphere in which the Chief of Staff, the commanders of the Air Force, and the head of the Shin Bet worked in the past year. The warnings they issued about the seriousness of the situation, and the danger that the enemy would exploit the internal rift in Israel to attack, fell on deaf ears. Netanyahu even refused to receive the Chief of Staff before the law abolishing the reasonableness argument was passed in the Knesset.

The direct lesson is that a criminal defendant should not be prime minister, as Netanyahu previously warned in the case of Ehud Olmert, when he said: “There is a fear that he will make fateful decisions, based on his personal interest and political survival, and not based on the national interest.” Even in these moments, Netanyahu is preoccupied with his political survival, and it does not seem that he intends to resign, or take responsibility for the disaster. The least that is required of him is to abandon politics, public relations, and his personal survival, and devote all his energy to managing the dangerous security crisis. He cannot postpone investigations and clarifications until another day, and at the same time, collect materials before establishing the investigation committee, and ask his supporters to attack senior military officials.

There is a way to manage this battle professionally, without resigning: announcing that he will resign at the end of this battle. It is reasonable to assume that this was the decision reached by senior officials in the army and Shin Bet, who deep down understand their responsibility for the disaster. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Netanyahu survives this disaster and remains prime minister. Even before the massacre in the Gaza Envelope, his and his government's popularity had declined due to the damage of judicial reform. After more than 1,300 dead and about 220 kidnapped, this seems more clear. The question remains: How will this happen? When will his partners in his party and in the coalition realize that he has turned from an asset into a burden?

The Richmond City Council in California voted in favor of a resolution accusing Israel of practicing ethnic cleansing and considering it a state that practices apartheid against the Palestinian people.

The resolution was adopted by a majority of five votes in favor and one vote against, and was titled: “Richmond City Council affirms support and solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

The population of this city is more than a quarter of a million citizens. Before voting, the positions of the citizens were listened to, most of whom expressed their support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights.

The resolution affirmed that “the city of Richmond stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, who are currently facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment from the State of Israel.”

He stressed that collective punishment is considered a war crime under international law, and refers to a form of punishment imposed on persons or a group of persons in response to a crime committed by one of them or a member of the group. The resolution said: The State of Israel practices collective punishment against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and this collective punishment of the Palestinian people includes cutting off all access to electricity, drinking water, food, and humanitarian aid.

The resolution referred to reports issued by the United Nations, which stated that nearly two million people in Gaza would not soon find drinking water and medical care.

The resolution considered that Israel is now engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing by explicitly demanding that two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip leave Gaza immediately or risk being bombed in their homes by the Israeli army. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and groups have indicated that Human Rights Watch has repeatedly described it as “the largest open-air prison in the world”, due to the ongoing intolerable living conditions imposed by the State of Israel, including a complete air, land and sea blockade, cordoning off its borders with concrete walls and barbed wire fences, and the strict prohibition imposed on Palestinians. To leave and enter the region freely, and since this siege on Gaza has caused an unemployment rate of up to 42%, while 84% of the population depends on humanitarian aid, 41% of Palestinians have little food, and 60% of Palestinian children suffer from anemia. Gazans cannot rely on more than 2-4 hours of continuous electrical power per day, and that before this current water shortage, only 1% of Gaza’s population had access to safe drinking water, leaving Gazans - half of whom are children - vulnerable.

Increased risk of waterborne diseases, infections and dehydration, as Israel has not allowed many common cancer diagnostic and treatment tools, including positron emission tomography and radiotherapy, to enter Gaza since 2007. It was also decided that the city of Richmond pledges to combat anti-Semitism and ethnic nationalism at all costs. forms, and finally, they resolved that the City of Richmond defends the dignity and safety of the residents of every community, regardless of the crimes that may be committed by its leadership, and that peaceful diplomacy is the only way to achieve this safety and dignity.

The state of uncertainty and suffering experienced by the families of kidnapped citizens and captured soldiers in Gaza, to a large extent, imposes restrictions on the hands of the Israeli army, and prevents Israel from doing what is required to fundamentally change the reality in the Gaza Strip. The issue disturbs us emotionally here in Israel, and it disturbs enlightened citizens and leaders around the world. At the same time, it is understood that there are dozens of Israeli children, women and elderly people, some of whom are citizens of other countries who have been kidnapped, stuck as if they were a thorn in the throat of the killers. As long as they are detained in Gaza, Hamas or Islamic Jihad will not be able to mobilize almost the only effective pressure that remains available to them: American public opinion in particular, and international opinion in general.

In addition to the above, Hamas or Islamic Jihad will not be able to use their prisoners and bodies to achieve the primary goal of the October 7 massacre, without making a settlement with Israel. This primary goal is to liberate Palestinian security prisoners and detainees from prisons in Israel. Here, it is clear that the two main parties in this war, namely Israel and Hamas, now have a great interest in ending the issue of the kidnapped and hostages, in a humane manner, and without shedding more blood. This common and horrific interest must be exploited, and can be exploited, through an exchange deal achieved through Qatari and Egyptian mediation, under pressure from the United States and its allies behind the scenes.

In general, the talk here is about an event in which Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other armed organizations and groups in Gaza release all the prisoners and hostages in their control, including the bodies. In return, and at the same time and place, Israel transfers a number to be determined, a very large number, unfortunately, of Palestinian prisoners. In return, Hamas will also receive broad humanitarian support, including food, water, medicine, health equipment, field hospitals, tents, clothing and personal equipment suitable for winter. The aid will come through Egypt, and the aid is likely to also include a limited amount of fuel, which will be supplied to hospitals in several batches.

Additional principles according to which an exchange transaction must be conducted:

It must be made clear to the mediators that this deal must be implemented before the IDF enters a major ground exercise in the Strip. It must be made clear to the mediators, and to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that the Israeli army will carry out the ground invasion in any case, and then Israel will greatly tighten the conditions for its approval of the deal, if it agrees to it at all.

The exchange should include the bodies of soldiers Hadar Goldin and Shaul Oren, who were killed in Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

Israel releases hundreds of security prisoners, according to a nominal list provided by Hamas. Israel will not compromise on the identity of the liberated prisoners, although it is clear that the list will include “killers” with a lot of blood on their hands. However, Israel will not give up its demand that every Palestinian prisoner freed in this deal be transferred to the Gaza Strip, and not be allowed to leave the Strip.

In order to implement the deal, a humanitarian ceasefire will be declared under the supervision of the United Nations, and will last between 12 and 24 hours.

In order to ensure transparency for both parties, and to prevent deception, fraud and interference by foreign parties, the exchange will be carried out in the open area located on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Carrying out the exchange, via Egypt or another third country, may lead to delays and misunderstandings that could disrupt this sensitive procedure. The groups of liberators from both sides are accompanied by Red Cross personnel.

This plan can be implemented quickly, as it does not require long negotiations, protects the vital interests of the kidnapped and their families, does not constitute a handcuff to the Israeli army, and allows both Hamas and Islamic Jihad to claim that they did not kneel and did not feel insulted. It is not possible, and of course not desirable, to list all the reasons for supporting the exchange deal proposed here and those for rejecting it. But this balanced scheme creates strong incentives for both sides, so its success is possible.

Today, Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces arrested 8 citizens at the Atara military checkpoint, located on citizens’ lands, north of Ramallah.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces arrested eight citizens, “whose identity is not yet known,” as they passed through the Atara military checkpoint, indicating that the soldiers stationed at the checkpoint were checking the citizens’ identities and searching their vehicles.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli occupation forces arrested three Jerusalemites, while clashes broke out in the Shuafat refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem.

Local sources said that the occupation forces closed the military checkpoint established at the entrance to the camp, which connects it to the occupied city of Jerusalem, while dozens of soldiers stormed the camp’s courtyards, fired rubber-coated metal bullets, poison gas bombs, and incendiary bombs at the citizens, and beat up a number of them.

In this context, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the Al-Saadiya neighborhood in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, and arrested both: Hamed and Hamza Al-Rajabi, after raiding their house.

The occupation forces also stormed the town of Al-Issawiya, north of occupied Jerusalem, and arrested former prisoner Walid Alyan after raiding his home.

John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said on Tuesday that Israel would continue to harm “innocent civilians” in its attack on Gaza.

When asked if the United States believed the Israeli bombing was a disproportionate response to Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, Kirby said, "It's war. It's fighting. It's bloody, it's ugly, it's going to be messy, and innocent civilians will be hurt in the future."

"I wish I could tell you something different and I wish it wouldn't happen, but it will happen. And that doesn't make it right and it doesn't make it undeniable," Kirby added.

He also reiterated US opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza, claiming that it would only benefit Hamas. Both Kirby and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is open to the idea of a “humanitarian truce” to allow more aid into Gaza.

Kirby insisted that the United States would continue to urge Israel to reduce civilian casualties, but Israel doubled its bombing of the Gaza Strip, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted on Tuesday that the air strikes launched the previous day were the most difficult to occur.

Although Kirby depicted civilian casualties as a fact of modern warfare, Israeli bombing was particularly brutal, with Israeli attacks leveling entire neighborhoods to the ground. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, after 18 days of bombing, at least 6,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 2,360 children (according to UNICEF).

Kirby questioned the casualty numbers issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza due to Hamas' control of the ministry.

However, experts estimate that the number of victims will be more than that because hundreds of them are still under the rubble, and this is consistent with Israeli statements, as Israel boasted about the size of the Israeli bombing unit, as the Israeli authorities stated that in only the first six days of its attack, Israeli forces shot down 6,000 bombs on Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on Earth. By comparison, the United States dropped 7,423 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019, the most since the United States began keeping a tally in 2006.

On the 18th day of the war on Gaza, Israeli aircraft continued to bomb civilians relentlessly, and the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip documented during the past hours 47 massacres that left 704 martyrs, which raises the total toll within two weeks to about 6,000 martyrs, most of them children and women, in addition to More than 15 thousand infected.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced today, Wednesday, the cancellation of all his plans to visit Israel due to its brutal attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza, stressing at the same time that the Hamas movement is not terrorist, and warning that Turkey will use all political and military means if necessary to stop the aggression against... Gaza.

Erdogan said, in a speech before his party’s parliamentary bloc: “We had a project to go to Israel and I canceled it. Israel kills children, and we will not allow them to be killed because we have our share of humanity,” noting that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza are a sign of killing, and we will do so.” Whatever it takes is for Gaza, and we will never give up our position.”

Erdogan considered that Israel is carrying out one of the most brutal attacks in history against the Palestinian people in Gaza, as half of the dead are children, and the other half are their mothers and the elders of their families, and this alone is enough to show the horror of Israel, considering that making excuses for launching attacks is the West’s legacy of its bloody history. .

Erdogan stressed that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, saying, “I appeal to Israel from here, and I tell it that you can be an organization, because the West owes you a lot, but Turkey does not owe you anything. The West considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas is not a terrorist organization; "It is a group of mujahideen trying to protect and liberate their lands."

The Turkish President escalated his words against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying, "I shook the hand of this man called Netanyahu once in my life (past United Nations meetings). Of course we had good intentions and they misused them."

Erdogan stressed the need to declare a ceasefire immediately, saying, "As long as innocent people continue to die in Gaza, sending any ship to the region will not lead to peace, and Israel must respond to our call for peace."

He continued: "We will continue, as a state and a nation, to call for the truth and use all diplomatic and military means if necessary. Both parties must remove their hands from the trigger. A ceasefire must be declared, our call for peace must be answered, the hostages must be released quickly, and the Rafah border gate must remain open in "At all times, settler terrorism must also end."

He stressed that Turkey will never stop bearing responsibility, stressing that it is ready to be one of the guarantors of the Palestinian side with its political and military presence, considering that the issue of the guarantor is the most effective way to provide a realistic solution, recommending holding a conference for Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Calling on countries to put pressure on the Netanyahu government to bring Israel back to its senses, the Turkish president stressed that "peace in the region depends on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state recognized by the whole world. Otherwise, it is not possible to predict where extremism will lead us."

He added, "I repeat my call: the United Nations must reform itself," considering that "the structure that hands over world security to the interests of the five countries has no sustainability," deploring the state of impotence that the United Nations has reached.

The Jordanian King, King Abdullah II, stressed during his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, today, Wednesday, that stopping the war on Gaza is an absolute necessity, and the world must move immediately in this direction.

The Jordanian King and the French President discussed possible efforts internationally to work to end the cycle of violence, reach a political horizon to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, ensure security, and achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.

In the meeting, which took place in Al-Husseiniya Palace, he warned against the continuation of the war on the Gaza Strip, which might lead to an explosion in the situation in the region.

The Jordanian King called on the international community to take immediate action to pressure Israel to stop the war, protect civilians, and break the siege on the Gaza Strip.

He renewed the warning of the seriousness of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, stressing the importance of ensuring the arrival of humanitarian aid.

He also affirmed his rejection of any attempts to displace or cause displacement within the Gaza Strip.

He stressed the importance of France's role in supporting efforts to work towards a political horizon to achieve peace based on the two-state solution.

The French President left the Kingdom on Wednesday.

As the sun begins to rise every day, Palestinian Ahmed Nassar from the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip rushes with five of his brothers on foot to reach their nearest bakery and line up in a long line to get a little bread for their displaced family.

After long hours of waiting, often punctuated by quarrels between citizens for fear of taking the other’s turn, Nassar (33 years old), a father of four children, complains that he can barely buy 4 kilograms of bread, and sometimes he may return to his house crowded with displaced people. “Zero” Hands without anything.

Nassar told Xinhua news agency after his turn to get bread approached, "The worst thing than waiting in such a queue is hearing the sound of successive explosions that result from targeting civilian homes, especially when they are close to the bakery that we are standing in front of."

He added, "Israel does not differentiate between civilian and military, and if it wants to target someone, it will not care whether he is among us or not. It will inevitably target us all."

He continued, "I do not want to die and leave my children to suffer after me. I am the only breadwinner for them in this tragic life that often puts us through difficult and deadly tests."

Nassar's family of six usually consumes four kilograms of bread daily, but due to the difficult circumstances they are going through, his wife decided to provide one meal for her children and a little bread once instead of three times.

His wife says, "We are displaced and do not live in our own house. Everything has changed and all the time we live under the sounds of bombing and explosions. I do not have a kitchen to cook nor even the tools needed for that. We are truly dying slowly."

The situation is not much different for forty-year-old Nidal Al-Ashqar, who used to stand in long bread lines for more than ten days after his displacement from Gaza City to Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip to escape Israeli raids.

Al-Ashqar, a father of six children, told Xinhua, "I was tired of waiting for a long time without getting enough for my children, so my wife decided to make bread at home."

However, Al-Ashqar does not have a sufficient amount of cooking gas, which prompted his wife, Wafa, to use wood to light a fire to cook food and prepare bread for her “homeless” family, as she put it.

The couple expressed their fears that the house they currently live in might be targeted by Israeli warplanes, especially with smoke rising from the fires.

Wafa says, "Mostly, I feel like an Israeli fighter plane might attack our house because of the smoke rising from the firewood."

She went on to say, "We are living in an unprecedented conflict, and Israel does not separate civilians from militants," noting that, "Even if we survive the Israeli attacks, I will not have enough money to buy more flour if we run out."

In addition to the Nassar and Al-Ashqar families, there are more than 2.3 million Palestinians suffering from the consequences of the severe Israeli siege that was imposed weeks ago on the coastal enclave as collective punishment for the local population, who have already been suffering from poverty, destitution, and food shortages for more than 17 years.

Israel has been waging a large-scale war on the Gaza Strip for 19 consecutive days, after the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) carried out a military attack on the Israeli towns adjacent to the Strip.

According to UN and Palestinian officials, the tightening of the Israeli siege and the military war led to a significant scarcity of goods as the third week of the war approached its end, without any indications of reaching a truce agreement.

This prompted Shadi Salha, a lawyer from the city of Rafah, to express his fears about the repercussions of the current reality, saying, “It seems that Israel is following a new policy of killing us in Gaza by committing mass massacres with its warplanes, or killing us en masse by imposing famine on us.”

He added, "They (the Israelis) are targeting bakeries spread throughout the Gaza Strip... Can you give us a logical justification for that?", stressing the need to protect civilians from the "Israeli madness" that targets everything Palestinian in Gaza.

In addition to providing food and basic needs, Salha wants to "provide safe areas with international guarantees that prevent the occupation from targeting these areas, in light of its deliberate targeting of civilian gatherings."

After intense and complex negotiations, Israel allowed the entry of about 40 trucks in successive batches loaded with humanitarian aid, including medicines and food, into the Gaza Strip without bringing fuel.

The Executive Director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, stressed that “there is an urgent need for food because the conditions inside Gaza are truly catastrophic (...) This aid is important for the people of Gaza, but we must also provide continuous and safe access for humanitarian workers and civilians inside Gaza so that we can Delivering this food to people in need.

The head of the government office run by the Hamas movement, Salama Marouf, said, “There are goods that have completely run out of markets and distribution and sales points, in addition to the presence of other goods remaining in very scarce quantities, which would put the sector in a state of stagnation,” warning that “food security "The population is in danger."

Marouf added, "What was allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing did not include basic food needs or even the fuel needed to operate electrical generators in hospitals, as the existing fuel is close to running out, which threatens to put hospitals out of service and threaten the lives of patients."

According to Marouf, about 1.4 million people were displaced from their homes (most of which were destroyed) to avoid the “barbaric attacks launched by Israel on the civilian population.”

For its part, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced that about 406,000 displaced people reside in 91 facilities affiliated with the international organization in the central regions, Khan Yunis, and Rafah, while the agency’s shelters are designed to host between 1,500 and 2,000 displaced people in each shelter.

Acting Director of the UNRWA Information Office, Enas Hamdan, told Xinhua, "The situation in the Gaza Strip is extremely catastrophic in light of the ongoing Israeli raids, in addition to the lack of electricity and the availability of water only in very small quantities."

She added, "We are doing everything we can to provide the displaced people with supplies inside the agency's schools and headquarters."

However, the United Nations organization faces popular and official criticism from government agencies in Gaza, Palestinian factions, and even human rights organizations, against the backdrop of failure to provide for the needs of displaced people in various regions of the Strip.

ICC acted rapidly over war crimes claims in Ukraine but seems ‘very slow’ when it comes to Palestine, says Ben Saul, an international law expert set to take over as UN special rapporteur next month

- Court needs to show same urgency to reassure the world that it is impartial, Saul tells Anadolu

- Lack of urgency about Palestine compared to Ukraine shows ‘inequality loaded with political influences,’ says Dewan Khalil, senior lawyer at UK firm part of previous ICC cases involving Israel.

The devastating human cost of Israel’s relentless assault on the Gaza Strip continues to mount by the hour.

More than 5,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been killed in Israeli bombardment, which has targeted all areas of the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Its aerial attacks have hit densely populated residential areas, hospitals and other civilian sites, also claiming the lives of dozens of humanitarian and health workers and journalists.

Israel has cut off basic supplies, such as water, electricity and humanitarian aid, to more than 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip, while also ordering what some experts call the forced displacement of over 1.1 million with its evacuation warning for northern Gaza.

For Israel, all of this was a response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and its subsequent rocket attacks on Israeli areas, which have now claimed more than 1,400 lives.

But many around the world have questioned the excessive and disproportionate force used by Israel, giving rise to multiple warnings of war crimes and crimes against humanity, from legal experts and even officials like Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories.

One of the areas of focus has been the role – or the apparent lack of it – of institutions like the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), or the independent International Criminal Court (ICC), which, by its own definition, has the specific mandate of acting on “the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.”

On Monday, the ICJ announced it will hold public hearings on the request for an advisory opinion on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

However, the hearings will begin on Feb. 19 next year.

As for the ICC, several experts have been calling on it to take immediate action over the growing escalation in Gaza.

“While the ICC responded rapidly to allegations of war crimes in Ukraine since last year, it seems to be very slow in addressing crimes in Palestine since it began its investigation in 2015,” said Ben Saul, who was recently appointed as the next UN special rapporteur on promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.

Saul, currently the Challis Chair of International Law at the University of Sydney in Australia, will take over the post this November.

He said the ICC needs to show “the same urgency and mobilization of resources, to reassure the world that it is impartial and that its legitimacy is not undermined by the geopolitical forces.”

“All states should cooperate with the court where they have information about crimes,” he told Anadolu.

He pointed out that there have been several violations by both Hamas and Israeli forces in the current escalation.

For Israel, he said the “total siege of Gaza is a violation of international law, and could constitute the war crime of starvation.”

“Israel has an obligation to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief, including food and medicine. Israel’s warnings to civilians about impending attacks must be effective, and its order to evacuate over 1 million people in northern Gaza, under siege conditions was not sufficient,” he said.

“More information is needed about Israel’s targeting decisions and intelligence, but it is possible that some of the thousands of Israeli bombings in Gaza may have involved excessive civilian casualties or indiscriminate attacks.”

For Hamas, Saul said the “mass killings of Israeli civilians could constitute the international crime of genocide if specifically intended to destroy part of the Israeli and/or Jewish people as such.”

“They could also constitute various crimes against humanity,” he said.

ICC response shows ‘inequality loaded with political influences’

The ICC has confirmed its jurisdiction over war crimes in Palestine for all parties, according to Khalil Dewan, head of legal investigations at UK-based law firm Stoke White, which has been part of previous cases at the ICC involving Israel.

“The ICC are accepting evidence bundles of war crimes, and recently announced that the prosecutor holds jurisdiction via Palestine,” he told Anadolu.

“The court’s jurisdiction of war crimes includes Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza for all parties to the conflict.”

He said many law firms are gathering evidence “including current hostilities – targeting civilians, protected infrastructure and collective punishment.”

“Israel’s pending ground force actions will be carefully examined and submitted to the ICC,” he said.

Dewan pointed out that Israel will “reject the ICC’s jurisdiction,” but added that “it has already been claimed by the (ICC) prosecutor.

“In any case, the ICC’s lack of urgency and approach to war crimes in Palestine, compared to the response to Ukraine demonstrates inequality loaded with political influences,” he asserted.

Dewan said that international law remains an “indeterminate legal system,” and that “some states deploy the strategy of ‘lawfare’ to win military objectives, including politics and media narratives.”

He said Palestinians have “exhausted all international legal and political avenues in seeking justice.”

“The calls at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to form a separate regional mechanism for peace and safeguarding security of Palestine would be a welcomed initiative,” he said.

“If UN resolutions are not upheld on Palestine, then it’s vital to seek decolonial approaches to international law, and weed out lawfare designed to silence and subjugate non-Western states.”

‘ICC can issue arrest warrants’

Ahmet Necip Arslan, an Istanbul-based attorney, echoed the same views, saying that the ICC’s mechanisms are “very slow.”

“Often the decisions made, in any stage, can be under the heavy influence of governments and politics,” he told Anadolu.

Arslan pointed out that the ICC “can issue arrest warrants,” stressing that “this can be an effective method to stop an armed conflict.”

He said reports coming out of Gaza “indicate that Israel is employing prohibited weapons like white phosphorus and targeting places of worship and cultural properties, both considered war crimes.”

Israel, he continued, has been depriving civilians of essentials such as food, water, humanitarian aid, antibiotics and medical supplies, adding that these could be violations of international law that could be “potential war crimes.”

Anadolu Agency

Source: Anadolu

Today, Wednesday, the Israeli occupation and settlers continue their attacks on citizens and their property in the West Bank.

In Hebron, the occupation forces seized land from the town of Surif, northwest of the city.

According to local sources, the Israeli occupation forces were notified, via a military order, of seizing and seizing more than two dunums of town land in the Khallet Salama area near the Al-Jabaa military checkpoint, for military purposes, and it belongs to the Al-Hur family.

The occupation forces also raided the Khallet al-Kalata area adjacent to the “Karmi Tzur” settlement, south of Beit Ummar, and bulldozed lands with an area of about one thousand square metres, and uprooted more than 25 forest trees, owned by a citizen.

In the same context, a settler, accompanied by the occupation army, fired live bullets at the citizens, bulldozing land with an area of about 6,000 square metres, and uprooting 55 forest trees and almond trees, owned by the citizen Hafez Al-Harini, near the village of Al-Tuwanah, south of Hebron.

In Nablus, the occupation forces assaulted a young man by beating him near the entrance to the village of Aqraba, south of the city.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, its crews transported a young man to the hospital after the occupation forces beat him near the town of Aqraba.

Meanwhile, settlers, protected by the Israeli occupation forces, opened fire on farmers in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, northwest of Salfit.

The Prisoners' Affairs Authority and the Prisoners' Club confirmed today, Wednesday, that the Israeli occupation has begun carrying out a systematic assassination operation against prisoners and detainees.

This came after the martyrdom of detainees Omar Daraghmeh and Arafat Hamdan within 24 hours.

In a joint statement, the Authority and the Club referred to a report issued by the Occupation Prisons Administration, which showed that the detained martyr, Omar Daraghmeh, was suffering from internal bleeding at the moment of his martyrdom. “This confirms once again that he was subjected to a premeditated assassination.”

The authority and the club referred in a joint statement to a report issued by the occupation prisons administration, which showed that the detained martyr, Omar Daraghmeh, was suffering from internal bleeding at the moment of his martyrdom. “This confirms once again that he was subjected to a premeditated assassination,” according to the statement.

The statement added: “The reference to this report issued by the Prisons Administration is not out of our need for proof of this assassination, but rather to confirm that the occupation’s narrative is merely lies to disavow the crime, as it has always done and will always do.”

Omar Daraghmeh was martyred two weeks after his arrest, and hours before his martyrdom was announced, a court session was held for him, and his lawyer said that he asked him about his health and assured him that he was in good health. As for the young man, Arafat Hamdan, he rose only two days after his arrest.

It is noteworthy that the occupation army arrested 1,350 Palestinians from the West Bank since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, until this morning, Wednesday, October 25.

The head of the Prisoners’ Authority, Qaddoura Fares, confirmed that male and female prisoners are exposed to a state of starvation and thirst, and are prevented from obtaining medicine, specifically the medicines taken by prisoners with chronic diseases, which puts their lives in danger, not to mention cutting off water and electricity for them.

Qaddoura Fares reported that physical attacks against prisoners were repeated. The occupation authorities even used sticks, axes and shovels to beat the prisoners. Many of the prisoners had their limbs, hands and legs broken, indicating that some of the prisoners were not recognized by their colleagues’ faces due to the tumors that resulted from the brutal attacks.

The occupation prison administration also implements retaliatory measures in all prisons, including cutting off electricity, reducing the shower period for all prisoners, increasing the number of prisoners per room, withdrawing all electrical items, and repeating the counting process several times a day. This is in addition to the repressive forces’ raids into prisons and violent attacks during... that.