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Netanyahu snaps back against growing US criticism after being accused of losing his way on Gaza
By TIA GOLDENBERG and RAVI NESSMAN
2 hours ago
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed Sunday against growing criticism from top ally the United States against his leadership amid the devastating war with Hamas, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.”
In recent days, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country and a strong Israel supporter, called on Israel to hold a new election, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.” President Joe Biden expressed support for Schumer’s “good speech," and earlier accused Netanyahu of hurting Israel because of the huge civilian death toll in Gaza.
Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate.
“We’re not a banana republic," he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.”
When asked by CNN whether he would commit to a new election after the war ends, Netanyahu said that “I think that’s something for the Israeli public to decide.”
The U.S., which has provided key military and diplomatic support to Israel, also has expressed concerns about a planned Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, told Fox the U.S. still hasn't seen an Israeli plan for Rafah.
The U.S. supports a new round of talks aimed at securing a cease-fire in exchange for the return of Israeli hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
The Israeli delegation to those talks was expected to leave for Qatar after Sunday evening meetings of the Security Cabinet and War Cabinet, which will give directions for negotiations.
Despite the talks, Netanyahu made it clear he would not back down from the fighting that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. More than five months have passed since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people and left another 250 hostage.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu said that calls for an election now — which polls show he would lose badly — would force Israel to stop fighting and paralyze the country for six months.
Netanyahu also reiterated his determination to attack Hamas in Rafah and said that his government approved military plans for such an operation.
“We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” he said. The operation is supposed to include the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, but it is not clear how Israel will do that.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi reiterated his warning that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would have “grave repercussions on the whole region." Egypt says pushing Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula would jeopardize its peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of regional stability.
“We are also very concerned about the risks a full-scale offensive in Rafah would have on the vulnerable civilian population. This needs to be avoided at all costs,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after meeting with el-Sissi.
And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, warned that "the more desperate the situation of people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?”
Germany is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and, given memories of the Holocaust, often treads carefully when criticizing Israel.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York and an outspoken critic of Netanyahu, said that the prime minister's comments fit with his efforts to find someone else to blame if Israel doesn't achieve its goal of destroying Hamas.
“He’s looking on purpose for a conflict with the U.S. so that he can blame Biden,” Pinkas said.
Both sides have something to gain politically from the dispute. The Biden administration is under increasing pressure from progressive Democrats and some Arab-American supporters to restrain Israel's war against Hamas. Netanyahu, meanwhile, wants to show his nationalist base that he can withstand global pressure, even from Israel's closest ally.
But pressure also comes from home, with thousands protesting again in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against Netanyahu's government and calling for a new election and a deal for the release of hostages. Large parts of the Israeli public want a deal, fearing that hostages are held in poor conditions and time is running out to bring them home alive.
Airdrops by the U.S. and other nations continue, while deliveries on a new sea route have begun, but aid groups say more ground routes and fewer Israeli restrictions on them are needed to meet humanitarian needs in any significant way.
“Of course we should be bringing humanitarian aid by road. Of course by now we should be having at least two, three other entry points into Gaza,” chef José Andrés with World Central Kitchen, which organized the tons of food delivered by sea, told NBC.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 31,645 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Israel says Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths because it operates in dense residential areas.
The Health Ministry on Sunday said that the bodies of 92 people killed in Israel’s bombardment had been brought to hospitals in Gaza in the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 130 wounded, it said.
At least 11 people from the Thabet family, including five children and one woman, were killed in an airstrike in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and an Associated Press journalist. The body of an infant lay among the dead.
___
Nessman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.
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UN says 'famine is imminent' in northern Gaza as Israel launches another raid on the main hospital
By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and TIA GOLDENBERG
2 hours ago
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. food agency said Monday that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza's total population to the brink of starvation.
The alarming report came as Israel faces mounting pressure from even its closest allies to streamline the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip and open more crossings. The European Union's top diplomat said the impending famine was “entirely man-made” as "starvation is used as a weapon of war.”
Israeli forces meanwhile launched another raid on the Gaza Strip's largest hospital early Monday, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there and had fired on them from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people have been sheltering.
The military said it killed a Hamas commander who was armed and hiding inside the medical center, and that one of its own soldiers was killed in the operation.
The army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to some underground rooms, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital. But the evidence fell short of the earlier claims, and critics accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians.
RAFAH OFFENSIVE COULD PUSH HALF OF GAZA TO STARVATION
The World Food Program on Monday released the latest findings of its Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an international process for estimating the scale of hunger crises.
It says virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and that around 677,000 people — nearly a third of the population of 2.3 million — are experiencing the highest level of catastrophic hunger. That includes around 210,000 people in the north.
It warned that if Israel broadens its offensive to the packed southern city of Rafah, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed, the fighting could drive over a million people — half of Gaza's population — into catastrophic hunger.
“This is the largest number of people facing imminent famine in the world today, and it has only taken five months to occur,” said Matthew Hollingworth, the acting World Food Program country director for the Palestinian territories.
“It’s still possible to turn this around but there has to be a cease-fire and there has to be massive amounts of food aid to flow consistently, and people need to have access to clean water and health care,” he said.
Northern Gaza, including Gaza City, was the first target of the invasion and entire neighborhoods have been obliterated. It is now the epicenter of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe, with many residents reduced to eating animal feed. At least 20 people, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and dehydration in the north, the Health Ministry said earlier this month.
Airdrops by the U.S. and other nations continue, while deliveries on a new sea route have begun, but aid groups say it’s essential that Israel open up more land routes and ease restrictions. The WFP report said airdrops account for a “negligible share” of aid compared with what is brought in on trucks.
Israeli authorities say they place no limits on the entry of aid and accuse U.N. bodies of failing to distribute it in a timely manner. Aid groups say distribution is impossible in much of Gaza because of ongoing hostilities, the difficulty of coordinating with the military and the breakdown of law and order.
Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and an expert on global famines, said Israel has had “ample warning" that if it continued to launch massive operations that destroy key infrastructure, displace large numbers of people and obstruct aid operations, the results would be catastrophic.
"In failing to change course, it is culpable for these deaths,” he said.
Ahead of the report's release, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said it was up to Israel to facilitate more aid.
“Israel has to do it. It is not a question of logistics. It is not because the United Nations has not provided enough support,” he said. “Trucks are stopped. People are dying, while the land crossings are artificially closed.”
‘WE’RE TRAPPED INSIDE'
The heavy fighting around Shifa Hospital, in the heart of Gaza City, meanwhile pointed to the continuing presence of Palestinian militants in northern Gaza despite the harsh conditions there.
People sheltering in the hospital said Israeli forces backed by tanks and artillery had surrounded the medical complex and that snipers were shooting at people inside. They said the army raided a number of buildings and detained dozens of people.
“We’re trapped inside,” said Abdel-Hady Sayed, who has been sheltering in the medical facility for over three months. “They fire at anything moving. … Doctors and ambulances can’t move.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said around 30,000 people are sheltering at the hospital, including patients, medical staff and people who have fled their homes seeking safety. The war has displaced around 80% of Gaza's population.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said the army launched a “high-precision operation” in parts of the medical complex. He said senior Hamas militants had regrouped there and were directing attacks from inside.
The army later said it had killed Faiq Mabhouh, identifying him as a senior member of Hamas' internal security apparatus. It said Mabhouh was armed and hiding inside the compound, and that “numerous” weapons were found in an adjacent room. The military said its forces detained around 80 people.
Hagari said the patients and medical staff could remain in the medical complex and that a safe passage was available for civilians who wanted to leave.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian facilities to shield its fighters, and the Israeli military has raided several hospitals since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including 81 in the past 24 hours. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise attack out of Gaza that triggered the war, and took another 250 people hostage. Hamas is still believed to be holding about 100 captives, as well as the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker another cease-fire and hostage release, but the gulf between the two sides remains wide, with Hamas demanding guarantees for an end to the war and Israel vowing to continue the offensive until it destroys the militant group.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
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So much for that shangrila of peace, harmony and stability for the Palestinians in the West Bank, eh? Seems like ethnic cleansing to me.
Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.
“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right over the Judea and Samaria area and the country in general,” Smotrich said Friday, referring to the territory by its biblical name, “we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country.”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Still, Israel has used land orders like the one issued Friday to gain control over 16 percent of Palestinian-controlled lands in the West Bank. The newly seized area includes parcels in the Jordan Valley and between the settlements of Maale Adumim and Keidar.
The announcement came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the future of the war in Gaza. Blinken’s arrival followed meetings in Cairo with several Arab leaders, and amid callsfrom Democratic senators for President Biden to establish a “bold, public framework” for a two-state solution that recognizes a “nonmilitarized Palestinian state.”
Friday’s land order is particularly problematic for the prospect of a two-state solution, experts say.
“If Israel confiscates land around Jerusalem, all the way to the Dead Sea, there will be no future for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem,” said Hamza Zubiedat, a land rights activist for the Ramallah-based Ma’an Development Center. “This is where a Palestinian capital was supposed to be located, according to the American and European talks.”
The land transfer will also cut across the West Bank, dividing the north and south.
“If the Israelis annex this area near Maale Adumim, it will be a catastrophe for Palestinians who live in the south,” Zubiedat said. “Palestinian traders, especially in the south, will be cut off, and it will become impossible to have any independent Palestinian ways of life.”
More than 40 percent of the West Bank is under the control of Israeli settlers, according to the Israel-based rights group B’Tselem, and more than half-a-million Jewish residents now live in the West Bank. Israel’s government has also used incentive programs to move Jewish residents into West Bank settlements, where more than 200 settlements and unofficial outposts have fractured the Palestinian territory and displaced Palestinian residents. In recent years, the Housing Ministry has offered subsidized apartments in the West Bank through a lottery system.
Palestinians have little ability to stop the land transfers. After the 1967 war, Israel issued a military order that stopped the process of land registration across the West Bank. Now families lack the paperwork to prove that they have private ownership over their land. And tax records, the only other evidence of West Bank property rights, are not accepted by Israeli authorities.
In June, the Knesset waived a long-standing legal precedent that required the prime minister and the defense minister to sign off on West Bank settlement construction at every phase. Smotrich enjoys near-total control over construction planning and approvals in the West Bank, and approved a record number of settlements in 2023.
“Israel has reached the conclusion that they could get away with this huge land grab because of the lack of international action,” said Sarit Michaeli, international advocacy lead at B’Tselem. “There have been individual economic U.S. sanctions placed on violent settlers, but the greater violence of the occupation is this colossal land theft.”
Smotrich, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, is a key leader in Israel’s settlement movement. Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst, called the Friday land transfer announcement by Smotrich a “provocation,” but also the continuation of his pro-settler ideological project. “He entered the government with one overriding purpose: to annex all land conquered in 1967 and extend permanent Jewish sovereignty everywhere, no matter how and when it has to happen,” Scheindlin said. “The timing and provocation ahead of Blinken’s visit is a bonus.”
The Biden administration announced sanctions on two West Bank settler outposts earlier this month, the first use of such economic restrictions on Israeli outposts. While West Bank settlements are authorized by the Israeli government, outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.
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UN top court orders Israel to open more land crossings for aid into Gaza
1 hour ago
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.
The International Court of Justice issued two new so-called provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its military campaign launched after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel denies it is committing genocide. It says its military campaign is self defense and aimed at Hamas, not the Palestinian people.
Thursday’s order came after South Africa sought more provisional measures, including a cease-fire, citing starvation in Gaza. Israel urged the court not to issue new orders.
In its legally binding order, the court told Israel to take measures “without delay” to ensure “the unhindered provision” of basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies.
It also ordered Israel to immediately ensure that its military does not take action that could that could harm Palestinians' rights under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The court told Israel to report back in a month on its implementation of the orders.
Israel declared war in response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage. Israel responded with a campaign of airstrikes and a ground offensive that have left over 32,000 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The fighting also displaced over 80% of Gaza's population and caused widespread damage.
The U.N. and international aid agencies say virtually the entire Gaza population is struggling to get enough food, with hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, especially in hard-hit northern Gaza.
South Africa welcomed Thursday's decision, calling it “significant.”
“The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist,” the South African president said in a statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry thanked South Africa, calling the case “a vital step in the global effort to hold Israel accountable for perpetrating genocide.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
In a written response earlier this month to South Africa's request for more measures, Israel said the claims by South Africa were “wholly unfounded," “morally repugnant" and "an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself.”
After initially sealing Gaza’s borders in the early days of the war, Israel began to permit entry of humanitarian supplies. It says it places no restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to properly organize the deliveries.
The U.N. and international aid groups say deliveries have been impeded by Israeli military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order.
Israel has been working with international partners on a plan to soon begin deliveries of aid by sea.
Israel has repeatedly feuded with the United Nations, particularly UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and main provider of aid in Gaza. Israel accuses the agency of tolerating and even cooperating with Hamas — a charge UNRWA denies.
The court said in its order that “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in." It cited a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that said at least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration.
The world court said earlier orders imposed on Israel after landmark hearings in South Africa’s case “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation” in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the army said it inspected 258 aid trucks, but only 116 were distributed within Gaza by the U.N.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, has also run pilot programs to inspect the humanitarian aid at Israel’s main checkpoints in the south and then use land crossings in central Gaza to try to bring aid to the devastated northern part of the Strip. The agency had no immediate comment on the ICJ ruling.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally.
The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden's party call for him to cut U.S. military aid.
The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
Biden on Friday acknowledged "the pain being felt" by many Arab Americans over the war in Gaza and over U.S. support for Israel and its military offensive.
Still, he has vowed continued support for Israel despite an increasingly public rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House declined comment on the weapons transfers.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision on weapons follows a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week when he discussed Israel's weapons needs with U.S. counterparts.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gallant, apparently seeking to cool U.S.-Israeli tensions, said he stressed the importance of U.S. ties to his country's security and of maintaining Israel’s "qualitative military edge" in the region, including its air capabilities.
The war erupted on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people and seized 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel has retaliated by launching an air and ground assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 32,000 people, health authorities in Gaza say.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis)
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Israel's high court says the government must stop funding seminaries. Could that topple Netanyahu?
By JULIA FRANKEL
Today
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Supreme Court ruling curtailing subsidies for ultra-Orthodox men has rattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition and raised questions about its viability as the country presses on with the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu has until Monday to present the court with a plan to dismantle what the justices called a system that privileges the ultra-Orthodox at the expense of the secular Jewish public.
If that plan alienates the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers on whose support he depends, his coalition could disintegrate and the country could be forced to hold new elections.
Here's a breakdown of the decision and what it might spell for the future of Israeli politics.
WHAT DOES THE DECISION SAY?
Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.
But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full time in religious seminaries, or yeshivas.
This years-old system has bred widespread resentment among the broader public — a feeling that has deepened during nearly six months of war. More than 500 soldiers have been killed in fighting, and tens of thousands of Israelis have had their careers, studies and family lives disrupted because of reserve duty.
The Supreme Court ruled that the current system is discriminatory and gave the government until Monday to present a new plan, and until June 30 to pass one. Netanyahu asked the court Thursday for a 30-day extension to find a compromise.
The court did not immediately respond to his request. But it issued an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly subsidies for religious students of enlistment age who have not received a deferral from the army. Those funds will be frozen starting Monday.
While the loss of state subsidies is certainly a blow, it appears the yeshivas can continue to function. Israel’s Channel 12 reported Friday that the state provides only 7.5% of all funding for the institutions. Netanyahu's coalition could also search for discretionary funds to cover the gaps.
HOW IS THE DECISION BEING RECEIVED?
Many Israelis are celebrating the court's decision, believing it spells an end to a system that takes for granted their military service and economic contributions while advantaging the ultra-Orthodox, or "Haredim" as they are called in Israel.
The religious exemption dates back to Israel’s founding, a compromise that the country's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, made with ultra-orthodox leaders to allow some 400 yeshiva students to devote themselves fully to Torah study. But what was once a fringe Haredi population has grown precipitously, making the exemption a hugely divisive issue to Israeli society.
Many ultra-Orthodox continue to receive government stipends into adulthood, eschewing getting paying jobs to instead continue full-time religious studies. Economists have long warned the system is unsustainable.
“The next government will have to hold a long overdue conversation about the future of the Haredi relationship to the state," commentator Anshel Pfeffer wrote in Israel's left-leaning daily, Haaretz.
“Now, the Haredim will have no choice but to take part in it. It won’t be just about the national service of its young men, it will also have to address fundamental questions about education and employment,” he said.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders have reacted angrily.
Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, called the court’s decision “unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”
The ultra-Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life, and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army. Although a small number have opted to serve in the military, many have vowed to fight any attempt to compel Haredim to do so.
“Without the Torah, we have no right to exist," said Yitzchak Goldknopf, leader of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism. "We will fight in every way over the right of every Jew to study Torah and we won’t compromise on that.”
WHY DOES IT THREATEN NETANYAHU?
Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, is known as a master political survivor. But his room for maneuver is limited.
Vowing to press forward with a war that has harmed the Israeli economy and asked much of its soldiers and reservists, Netanyahu could lose the support of the more centrist elements of his fragile national unity government if he tries to preserve the exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.
The two centrists in his fragile War Cabinet, both former generals, have insisted that all sectors of Israeli society contribute equally. One, Benny Gantz, has threatened to quit — a step that would destabilize a key decision-making body at a sensitive time in the war.
But the powerful bloc of ultra-Orthodox parties — longtime partners of Netanyahu — want draft exemptions to continue.
The ultra-Orthodox parties have not said what they will do if they lose their preferential status. But if they decide to leave the government, the coalition would almost certainly collapse and the country could be forced into new elections, with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls amid the war.
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I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.
By Peter Maass
Peter Maass is the author of “Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War.” He covered the Bosnia war for The Post, and the invasion of Iraq for the New York Times Magazine.
How does it feel to be a war-crimes reporter whose family bankrolled a nation that’s committing war crimes?
I can tell you.
I covered the genocide in Bosnia for The Post, wrote a book about it, and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, among other conflict-ridden countries. Also, my ancestors were key funders of Jewish emigration to British-controlled Palestine. The Warburgs and Schiffs donated millions of dollars to that cause, and during the war between Jews and Arabs that started in 1948, they helped raise vast sums for the new state of Israel. When Golda Meir made an emergency fundraising visit to the United States, one of the philanthropists she met with was an uncle of mine who led the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
As Israeli forces grind through Gaza in what the International Court of Justice defines as a “plausible” case of genocide, my family’s history of philanthropy runs into my familiarity with war crimes. When Israel bombs and shoots civilians, blocks food aid, attacks hospitals and cuts off water supplies, I remember the same outrages in Bosnia. When people in a Gaza flour line were attacked, I thought of the Sarajevans killed waiting in line for bread, and the perpetrators who in each case insisted the victims were slaughtered by their own side.
Atrocities tend to rhyme.
When I reported from besieged Sarajevo, I stayed in a hotel that was smack on the front line, with Serbian snipers routinely firing at civilians walking under my window. While exiting or entering the Holiday Inn, sometimes I was the one getting shot at. On a spring day in 1993, I heard the familiar crack and whistle of a sniper’s bullet, followed by an awful scream. I went to my window and saw a wounded civilian trying to crawl to safety. Writing in The Post more than three decades ago, I described the man’s desperate shouts as “a mad howl of a person pushed over the edge. It came from the lungs, from the heart, from the mind.”
I was thinking of Haris Bahtanovic — I tracked him to a nearby hospitalthe next day — as I watched an agonizing video from Gaza not long ago. The video shows a grandmother, Hala Khreis, trying to leave a neighborhood that Israeli forces are surrounding. Walking tentatively, she holds the hand of her grandson, who is five years old and carries a white flag. Suddenly, a shot rings out and she crumples to the ground dead. Sniper rifles have high-powered scopes — the shooters can see who they are shooting. The attacks on Khreis in 2024 and Bahtanovic in 1993 occurred in daytime and were not accidental.
Millions of Jews in America feel connected to Israel’s creation. Maybe our ancestors gave or raised money, maybe they went and fought, maybe they donated to Zionist organizations. What’s a Jew to do now? Everyone makes their own choices, but my experience of war crimes taught me that being Jewish means standing against any nation that commits war crimes.
Any.
I noted in my Bosnia book how being a Jew and seeing an actual genocide made me understand, more than before, the precariousness of minorities and the necessity of speaking out as atrocities emerge. That imperative strengthens if your government abets the crimes or your tribe commits them.
Israel and its supporters contend that what’s happening in Gaza is a legal and righteous response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters. It’s evident that war crimes were committed by Hamas: Israelis were shot in their homes at kibbutzim, and concertgoers at the Nova music festival were massacred. We’ve seen the pictures and videos, and while some allegations have turned out to be false, the evidence of brutal crimes is solid. Hamas is still holding more than 100 hostages.
That does not give Israel a pass to respond as it pleases. An eye for an eye — or a hundred eyes for one eye — is not a thing in international law. A key tenet of the laws of warfare is that an attack that endangers civilians must be militarily necessary, and any civilian casualties that occur must be proportional to the military gain. What that means, in plainer language, is that you cannot slaughter a lot of civilians for a minor battlefield gain, and you certainly cannot target civilians, as appears to have happened in the killing of Hala Khreis and many other Palestinians. So far, more than 30,000 people have been reported killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including more than 13,000 children.
The victims of genocide — which Jews were in the Holocaust — are not gifted with the right to perpetrate one. Of course, a war-crimes court should be the arbiter of whether Israel’s actions in Gaza qualify as genocide, but sufficient evidence for indictments appears to exist because the legal definition of genocide is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole orin part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The key words are “in part.” Holocaust levels of killing are not required to reach the legal standard.
This puts all Americans, not just American Jews, on the spot. The U.S. government is Israel’s principal supporter, by virtue of the bombs and other weapons that continue to be provided to the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We are all implicated.
The idea of Jews protecting the rights of Palestinians is not as new as you might think. Before the Holocaust, my ancestors were part of the “non-Zionist” movement that supported Jewish emigration to Palestine but opposed the creation of a Jewish state. The non-Zionist position was based on the concern that a Jewish state would result in violence and reinforce accusations that Jews were not loyal to America.
For example, in the May 21, 1917, edition of the New York Times, a headline reads: “Mr. Schiff Not for Zionism: He Would Establish Jewish Population, Not a Nation, in Palestine.” The story is about my great-great-grandfather, Jacob Schiff, the Gilded Age financier who bankrolled efforts to help persecuted Jews flee Europe. Theidealistic non-Zionist goal was for the Jews who were settling in Palestine to make a deal with the Arabs already living there that would not give either side complete government control. Two decades later, in 1936, my great-grandfather, Felix Warburg, who had married Schiff’s daughter, accurately warned that establishing a Jewish state would lead to “bloody heads and misfortune.”
Jewish settlement continued in Palestine, of course, and the Holocaust accelerated momentum for creating a national homeland there — for which my ancestors dutifully opened their wallets. But there is a largely forgotten history of what then happened in a dissenting corner of America’s Jewish community. As Geoffrey Levin writes in his relevant new book, “Our Palestine Question,” since the founding of Israel “there have been American Jews deeply unsettled by Israeli policies toward both the Palestinian refugees and Arabs living under Israeli rule,” who are fiercely dedicated to the issue.
These dissenting Jews were unsettled by, among other things, the exodus of more than 700,000 Arabs when Israel was established; it’s what Arabs refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” Israel refused to let these Arabs return to their homes and, over the decades, constructed a repressive apparatus of military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. While Levin’s book was published just before the latest convulsion, he astutely noted that “some American Jews today see their support for Palestinian rights as a meaningful expression of their Jewish identity.”
My Jewish identity was always a bit vague because my ancestors were German Jews who assimilated at the speed of cultural sound; when I was growing up, we even had a Christmas tree. (They donated and spent their money at the same pace; the fortune was mostly gone by the time I came of age.) I began to feel more Jewish while covering the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims. What Levin points to — the defense of Palestinians increasingly being an act of Jewish identity, particularly for younger Jews — feels right for me, too.
It was near Sen. Charles E. Schumer’s home in Brooklyn that I recently saw how this long-ignored movement has found new propulsion. I live a 10-minute walk from the Democratic majority leader’s apartment building, which the New York Police Department barricades whenever a protest approaches. Though Schumer now calls for early elections that might unseat Netanyahu, he supports military aid to Israel and is the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in the United States. Protesters are shunted a few hundred yards away to Prospect Park, and about 100 of them happened to be there when I walked by last month.
Some waved professionally printed, multicolored placards that said “Hands Off Rafah — Stop the Genocide,” and “Ceasefire Now — Let Gaza Live.” But there was also a woman wearing a kaffiyeh around her waist, who held a piece of cardboard with a handwritten message: “Jewish Nurse Against Occupation.” She was protesting not just the killing of civilians but the decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territory, which is the underlying problem.
These protesters are part of a movement that includes Jewish demonstrators who wear T-shirts that say “Not In Our Name.” Their potent voices undermine the argument that all protests against Israeli violence are antisemitic. They help legitimize global opposition to what’s being done in Gaza, and they defend not only Palestinian lives but Jewish lives, too, because they contradict the misbegotten idea that Jews as a whole are to blame for what Israel is doing.
I did not take the activist route after graduating from college. I chose journalism, then wars chose me. Through the years, I realized that exposing war crimes — wherever they occur — is central to my identity as an American, a journalist and a Jew.
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Booms and sirens in Israel after Iran launches ballistic missiles and drones in unprecedented attack
By JOSEF FEDERMAN and JON GAMBRELL
5 mins ago
JERUSALEM (AP) — Booms and air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem early Sunday after Iran launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles toward Israel in an unprecedented revenge mission that pushed the Middle East ever closer to a regionwide war.
The attack marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Condemnation was swift, with France saying that “Iran has crossed a new threshold with regard to its destabilizing activities and is risking a potential military escalation.” Britain called the attacks “reckless.”
There was no immediate word from authorities on whether any explosions were an incoming attack. Air raid sirens were reported in numerous places, including northern Israel, southern Israel, the northern West Bank and the Dead Sea near the Jordanian border. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating a 10-year-old boy in critical condition in the Bedouin area in the Arad region but provided no details.
U.S. forces downed some of the Iran-launched drones flying toward Israel, according to a U.S. defense official and two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The defense official said the effort to intercept the attack was ongoing.
Israel's military said over 100 drones had been fired. It didn't mention ballistic missiles, which are less easily shot down, but Iran said they were part of the attack.
“We are monitoring the threat,” the Israeli military’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, announced in a nationwide television address.
Iran had vowed revenge since an April 1 airstrike in Syria killed two Iranian generals inside an Iranian consular building. Iran accused Israel of being behind the attack. Israel hasn’t commented on it.
Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The war erupted after Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups backed by Iran, carried out a devastating cross-border attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others. An Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, according to local health officials.
Almost immediately after the war erupted, Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon, began attacking Israel’s northern border. The two sides have been involved in daily exchanges of fire, while Iranian-backed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have launched rockets and missiles toward Israel.
In a statement carried late Saturday by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged launching “dozens of drones and missiles towards the occupied territories and positions of the Zionist regime.”
In a later statement, the Revolutionary Guard issued a direct warning to the U.S.: “The terrorist U.S. government is warned any support or participation in harming Iran’s interests will be followed by decisive and regretting response by Iran’s armed forces."
IRNA also quoted an anonymous official saying ballistic missiles were part of the attack. A ballistic missile moves on an arch trajectory, heading up into space before gravity brings the weapon down at a speed several times faster than the speed of sound.
Israel has missile defense systems capable of targeting ballistic missiles. However, in a massive attack involving multiple drones and missiles, the likelihood of a strike making it through is higher.
Iran has a vast arsenal of drones and missiles. Online videos shared by Iranian state television purported to show delta-wing-style drones resembling the Iranian Shahed-136s long used by Russia in its war on Ukraine. The slow-flying drones carry bombs. Ukraine has successfully used both surface-to-air missiles and ground fire to target them.
Israel has a multilayered air-defense network that includes systems capable of intercepting a variety of threats including long-range missiles, cruise missiles, drones and short-range rockets.
Hagari, the army spokesman, said Israel was “prepared and ready." But he cautioned that the air defenses are not 100% effective and urged the public to heed safety instructions.
The army ordered residents in the Golan Heights — near the Syrian and Lebanese borders — as well as the southern towns of Nevatim and Dimona and the Red Sea resort of Eilat “to stay near protective spaces until further notice.” Dimona is home to Israel’s main nuclear facility, and Nevatim has a major air base.
The army’s Home Front Command canceled school on Sunday and limited public gatherings to no more than 1,000 people. Israel closed its airspace and canceled all flights.
Earlier Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “Whoever harms us, we will harm them.”
In Washington, President Joe Biden cut short a weekend trip to his beach house in Delaware to return to the White House. He was set to convene a principals meeting of the National Security Council on Saturday to discuss the unfolding attack, the White House said.
“The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, was in Israel over the weekend consulting with Israeli defense officials about the Iranian threat. The Central Command oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a warning to both Israel and the U.S. “Should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” it wrote online. “It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
For days, Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had threatened to “slap” Israel for its Syria strike.
In Iran’s capital, Tehran, witnesses saw long lines at gas stations early Sunday as people appeared worried about what may come next. Dozens of hard-liners demonstrated in support of the attack at Palestine Square.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling on multiple locations in south Lebanon following Iran's launch of drones. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched “dozens” of Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military site in the Golan Heights early Sunday. It was not immediately clear if there was any damage.
Countries in the region began to close their airspace.
___
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP correspondents Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Michael Balsamo in New York, Krutika Pathi in New Delhi, Stephen Graham in Berlin, Thomas Adamson in Paris, and Zeke Miller and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
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Tensions are at their highest since the Israel-Hamas war began six months ago after a suspected Israeli strike this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria killed 12 people, including two senior Iranian generals in the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force. Iran has promised to retaliate against Israel, and U.S. and Israeli officials have been bracing for an attack, raising concerns about the conflict escalating into a wider regional war.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a Saturday statement that “Iran has begun an airborne attack against Israel.” She added: “The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”
Biden boarded the presidential helicopter from a park near his house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to return to Washington Saturday afternoon shortly before Israeli officials confirmed that they had detected drones being launched toward their territory from Iran. He was set to convene a principals meeting of the National Security Council in the White House Situation Room to discuss the events and plan the U.S. response.
The Pentagon reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with his Israeli counterpart “to discuss urgent regional threats ... and made clear that Israel could count on full U.S. support to defend Israel against any attacks by Iran and its regional proxies." National security adviser Jake Sullivan also spoke with his counterpart to reinforce Washington's “ironclad commitment to the security of Israel.”
Biden on Friday said the United States was "devoted” to defending Israel and that “Iran will not succeed.” Asked by reporters what his message was for Iran, the president’s only reply was: “Don’t.”
He ignored a question about what would trigger a direct U.S. military response, and when asked how imminent an Iranian attack on Israel was, Biden said he did not want to get into secure information, “but my expectation is sooner than later.”
The U.S., along with its allies, have sent direct messages to Tehran to warn against further escalating the conflict.
During the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, there have been near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group along the Israel-Lebanon border. U.S. officials have recorded more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on U.S. forces at bases in those countries since war started on Oct. 7.
One attack in late January killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a massive air assault, hitting more than 85 targets at seven locations in Iraq and Syria.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the U.S. strongly condemned the seizure and urged Iran to release the ship and crew immediately.
“We will work with our partners to hold Iran to account for its actions,” she said.
Also Saturday, the Israeli-occupied West Bank also saw some of the worst violence since Hamas' attack on Israel.
___
Price reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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Comments
https://x.com/mmpadellan/status/1768305059996049572?s=20
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed Sunday against growing criticism from top ally the United States against his leadership amid the devastating war with Hamas, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.”
In recent days, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country and a strong Israel supporter, called on Israel to hold a new election, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.” President Joe Biden expressed support for Schumer’s “good speech," and earlier accused Netanyahu of hurting Israel because of the huge civilian death toll in Gaza.
Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate.
“We’re not a banana republic," he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.”
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
The European Union announces an $8 billion aid package for Egypt as concerns mount over migration
How should Israel bring to justice the perpetrators behind the worst attack in its history?
Israel strikes several sites in Syria, wounding a soldier, Syrian military says
Cease-fire talks with Israel and Hamas are expected to resume on Sunday in Qatar
When asked by CNN whether he would commit to a new election after the war ends, Netanyahu said that “I think that’s something for the Israeli public to decide.”
The U.S., which has provided key military and diplomatic support to Israel, also has expressed concerns about a planned Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, told Fox the U.S. still hasn't seen an Israeli plan for Rafah.
The U.S. supports a new round of talks aimed at securing a cease-fire in exchange for the return of Israeli hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
The Israeli delegation to those talks was expected to leave for Qatar after Sunday evening meetings of the Security Cabinet and War Cabinet, which will give directions for negotiations.
Despite the talks, Netanyahu made it clear he would not back down from the fighting that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. More than five months have passed since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people and left another 250 hostage.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu said that calls for an election now — which polls show he would lose badly — would force Israel to stop fighting and paralyze the country for six months.
Netanyahu also reiterated his determination to attack Hamas in Rafah and said that his government approved military plans for such an operation.
“We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” he said. The operation is supposed to include the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, but it is not clear how Israel will do that.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi reiterated his warning that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would have “grave repercussions on the whole region." Egypt says pushing Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula would jeopardize its peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of regional stability.
“We are also very concerned about the risks a full-scale offensive in Rafah would have on the vulnerable civilian population. This needs to be avoided at all costs,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after meeting with el-Sissi.
And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, warned that "the more desperate the situation of people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?”
Germany is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and, given memories of the Holocaust, often treads carefully when criticizing Israel.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York and an outspoken critic of Netanyahu, said that the prime minister's comments fit with his efforts to find someone else to blame if Israel doesn't achieve its goal of destroying Hamas.
“He’s looking on purpose for a conflict with the U.S. so that he can blame Biden,” Pinkas said.
Both sides have something to gain politically from the dispute. The Biden administration is under increasing pressure from progressive Democrats and some Arab-American supporters to restrain Israel's war against Hamas. Netanyahu, meanwhile, wants to show his nationalist base that he can withstand global pressure, even from Israel's closest ally.
But pressure also comes from home, with thousands protesting again in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against Netanyahu's government and calling for a new election and a deal for the release of hostages. Large parts of the Israeli public want a deal, fearing that hostages are held in poor conditions and time is running out to bring them home alive.
Israel’s offensive has driven most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes. A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving, according to the U.N.
Airdrops by the U.S. and other nations continue, while deliveries on a new sea route have begun, but aid groups say more ground routes and fewer Israeli restrictions on them are needed to meet humanitarian needs in any significant way.
“Of course we should be bringing humanitarian aid by road. Of course by now we should be having at least two, three other entry points into Gaza,” chef José Andrés with World Central Kitchen, which organized the tons of food delivered by sea, told NBC.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 31,645 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Israel says Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths because it operates in dense residential areas.
The Health Ministry on Sunday said that the bodies of 92 people killed in Israel’s bombardment had been brought to hospitals in Gaza in the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 130 wounded, it said.
At least 11 people from the Thabet family, including five children and one woman, were killed in an airstrike in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and an Associated Press journalist. The body of an infant lay among the dead.
___
Nessman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.
___
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. food agency said Monday that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza's total population to the brink of starvation.
The alarming report came as Israel faces mounting pressure from even its closest allies to streamline the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip and open more crossings. The European Union's top diplomat said the impending famine was “entirely man-made” as "starvation is used as a weapon of war.”
Israeli forces meanwhile launched another raid on the Gaza Strip's largest hospital early Monday, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there and had fired on them from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people have been sheltering.
The military said it killed a Hamas commander who was armed and hiding inside the medical center, and that one of its own soldiers was killed in the operation.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
The Latest | Israeli military raids Gaza's main hospital, claiming Hamas is using it as a base
Netanyahu snaps back against growing US criticism after being accused of losing his way on Gaza
The European Union announces an $8 billion aid package for Egypt as concerns mount over migration
How should Israel bring to justice the perpetrators behind the worst attack in its history?
The army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to some underground rooms, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital. But the evidence fell short of the earlier claims, and critics accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians.
RAFAH OFFENSIVE COULD PUSH HALF OF GAZA TO STARVATION
The World Food Program on Monday released the latest findings of its Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an international process for estimating the scale of hunger crises.
It says virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and that around 677,000 people — nearly a third of the population of 2.3 million — are experiencing the highest level of catastrophic hunger. That includes around 210,000 people in the north.
It warned that if Israel broadens its offensive to the packed southern city of Rafah, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed, the fighting could drive over a million people — half of Gaza's population — into catastrophic hunger.
“This is the largest number of people facing imminent famine in the world today, and it has only taken five months to occur,” said Matthew Hollingworth, the acting World Food Program country director for the Palestinian territories.
“It’s still possible to turn this around but there has to be a cease-fire and there has to be massive amounts of food aid to flow consistently, and people need to have access to clean water and health care,” he said.
Northern Gaza, including Gaza City, was the first target of the invasion and entire neighborhoods have been obliterated. It is now the epicenter of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe, with many residents reduced to eating animal feed. At least 20 people, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and dehydration in the north, the Health Ministry said earlier this month.
Airdrops by the U.S. and other nations continue, while deliveries on a new sea route have begun, but aid groups say it’s essential that Israel open up more land routes and ease restrictions. The WFP report said airdrops account for a “negligible share” of aid compared with what is brought in on trucks.
Israeli authorities say they place no limits on the entry of aid and accuse U.N. bodies of failing to distribute it in a timely manner. Aid groups say distribution is impossible in much of Gaza because of ongoing hostilities, the difficulty of coordinating with the military and the breakdown of law and order.
Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and an expert on global famines, said Israel has had “ample warning" that if it continued to launch massive operations that destroy key infrastructure, displace large numbers of people and obstruct aid operations, the results would be catastrophic.
"In failing to change course, it is culpable for these deaths,” he said.
Ahead of the report's release, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said it was up to Israel to facilitate more aid.
“Israel has to do it. It is not a question of logistics. It is not because the United Nations has not provided enough support,” he said. “Trucks are stopped. People are dying, while the land crossings are artificially closed.”
‘WE’RE TRAPPED INSIDE'
The heavy fighting around Shifa Hospital, in the heart of Gaza City, meanwhile pointed to the continuing presence of Palestinian militants in northern Gaza despite the harsh conditions there.
People sheltering in the hospital said Israeli forces backed by tanks and artillery had surrounded the medical complex and that snipers were shooting at people inside. They said the army raided a number of buildings and detained dozens of people.
“We’re trapped inside,” said Abdel-Hady Sayed, who has been sheltering in the medical facility for over three months. “They fire at anything moving. … Doctors and ambulances can’t move.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said around 30,000 people are sheltering at the hospital, including patients, medical staff and people who have fled their homes seeking safety. The war has displaced around 80% of Gaza's population.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said the army launched a “high-precision operation” in parts of the medical complex. He said senior Hamas militants had regrouped there and were directing attacks from inside.
The army later said it had killed Faiq Mabhouh, identifying him as a senior member of Hamas' internal security apparatus. It said Mabhouh was armed and hiding inside the compound, and that “numerous” weapons were found in an adjacent room. The military said its forces detained around 80 people.
Hagari said the patients and medical staff could remain in the medical complex and that a safe passage was available for civilians who wanted to leave.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian facilities to shield its fighters, and the Israeli military has raided several hospitals since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including 81 in the past 24 hours. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise attack out of Gaza that triggered the war, and took another 250 people hostage. Hamas is still believed to be holding about 100 captives, as well as the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker another cease-fire and hostage release, but the gulf between the two sides remains wide, with Hamas demanding guarantees for an end to the war and Israel vowing to continue the offensive until it destroys the militant group.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
___
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.
“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right over the Judea and Samaria area and the country in general,” Smotrich said Friday, referring to the territory by its biblical name, “we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country.”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Still, Israel has used land orders like the one issued Friday to gain control over 16 percent of Palestinian-controlled lands in the West Bank. The newly seized area includes parcels in the Jordan Valley and between the settlements of Maale Adumim and Keidar.
The announcement came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the future of the war in Gaza. Blinken’s arrival followed meetings in Cairo with several Arab leaders, and amid callsfrom Democratic senators for President Biden to establish a “bold, public framework” for a two-state solution that recognizes a “nonmilitarized Palestinian state.”
Friday’s land order is particularly problematic for the prospect of a two-state solution, experts say.
“If Israel confiscates land around Jerusalem, all the way to the Dead Sea, there will be no future for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem,” said Hamza Zubiedat, a land rights activist for the Ramallah-based Ma’an Development Center. “This is where a Palestinian capital was supposed to be located, according to the American and European talks.”
The land transfer will also cut across the West Bank, dividing the north and south.
“If the Israelis annex this area near Maale Adumim, it will be a catastrophe for Palestinians who live in the south,” Zubiedat said. “Palestinian traders, especially in the south, will be cut off, and it will become impossible to have any independent Palestinian ways of life.”
More than 40 percent of the West Bank is under the control of Israeli settlers, according to the Israel-based rights group B’Tselem, and more than half-a-million Jewish residents now live in the West Bank. Israel’s government has also used incentive programs to move Jewish residents into West Bank settlements, where more than 200 settlements and unofficial outposts have fractured the Palestinian territory and displaced Palestinian residents. In recent years, the Housing Ministry has offered subsidized apartments in the West Bank through a lottery system.
Palestinians have little ability to stop the land transfers. After the 1967 war, Israel issued a military order that stopped the process of land registration across the West Bank. Now families lack the paperwork to prove that they have private ownership over their land. And tax records, the only other evidence of West Bank property rights, are not accepted by Israeli authorities.
In June, the Knesset waived a long-standing legal precedent that required the prime minister and the defense minister to sign off on West Bank settlement construction at every phase. Smotrich enjoys near-total control over construction planning and approvals in the West Bank, and approved a record number of settlements in 2023.
“Israel has reached the conclusion that they could get away with this huge land grab because of the lack of international action,” said Sarit Michaeli, international advocacy lead at B’Tselem. “There have been individual economic U.S. sanctions placed on violent settlers, but the greater violence of the occupation is this colossal land theft.”
Smotrich, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, is a key leader in Israel’s settlement movement. Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst, called the Friday land transfer announcement by Smotrich a “provocation,” but also the continuation of his pro-settler ideological project. “He entered the government with one overriding purpose: to annex all land conquered in 1967 and extend permanent Jewish sovereignty everywhere, no matter how and when it has to happen,” Scheindlin said. “The timing and provocation ahead of Blinken’s visit is a bonus.”
The Biden administration announced sanctions on two West Bank settler outposts earlier this month, the first use of such economic restrictions on Israeli outposts. While West Bank settlements are authorized by the Israeli government, outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/22/israel-largest-west-bank-settlement-blinken-visit/
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.
The International Court of Justice issued two new so-called provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its military campaign launched after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel denies it is committing genocide. It says its military campaign is self defense and aimed at Hamas, not the Palestinian people.
Thursday’s order came after South Africa sought more provisional measures, including a cease-fire, citing starvation in Gaza. Israel urged the court not to issue new orders.
In its legally binding order, the court told Israel to take measures “without delay” to ensure “the unhindered provision” of basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies.
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It also ordered Israel to immediately ensure that its military does not take action that could that could harm Palestinians' rights under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The court told Israel to report back in a month on its implementation of the orders.
Israel declared war in response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage. Israel responded with a campaign of airstrikes and a ground offensive that have left over 32,000 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The fighting also displaced over 80% of Gaza's population and caused widespread damage.
The U.N. and international aid agencies say virtually the entire Gaza population is struggling to get enough food, with hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, especially in hard-hit northern Gaza.
South Africa welcomed Thursday's decision, calling it “significant.”
“The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist,” the South African president said in a statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry thanked South Africa, calling the case “a vital step in the global effort to hold Israel accountable for perpetrating genocide.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
In a written response earlier this month to South Africa's request for more measures, Israel said the claims by South Africa were “wholly unfounded," “morally repugnant" and "an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself.”
After initially sealing Gaza’s borders in the early days of the war, Israel began to permit entry of humanitarian supplies. It says it places no restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to properly organize the deliveries.
The U.N. and international aid groups say deliveries have been impeded by Israeli military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order.
Israel has been working with international partners on a plan to soon begin deliveries of aid by sea.
Israel has repeatedly feuded with the United Nations, particularly UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and main provider of aid in Gaza. Israel accuses the agency of tolerating and even cooperating with Hamas — a charge UNRWA denies.
The court said in its order that “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in." It cited a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that said at least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration.
The world court said earlier orders imposed on Israel after landmark hearings in South Africa’s case “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation” in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the army said it inspected 258 aid trucks, but only 116 were distributed within Gaza by the U.N.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, has also run pilot programs to inspect the humanitarian aid at Israel’s main checkpoints in the south and then use land crossings in central Gaza to try to bring aid to the devastated northern part of the Strip. The agency had no immediate comment on the ICJ ruling.
___
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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US has agreed to send more bombs and warplanes to Israel, sources say
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-signed-off-more-bombs-190415406.html
By Humeyra Pamuk and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally.
The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden's party call for him to cut U.S. military aid.
The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
Biden on Friday acknowledged "the pain being felt" by many Arab Americans over the war in Gaza and over U.S. support for Israel and its military offensive.
Still, he has vowed continued support for Israel despite an increasingly public rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House declined comment on the weapons transfers.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision on weapons follows a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week when he discussed Israel's weapons needs with U.S. counterparts.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gallant, apparently seeking to cool U.S.-Israeli tensions, said he stressed the importance of U.S. ties to his country's security and of maintaining Israel’s "qualitative military edge" in the region, including its air capabilities.
The war erupted on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people and seized 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel has retaliated by launching an air and ground assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 32,000 people, health authorities in Gaza say.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis)
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Supreme Court ruling curtailing subsidies for ultra-Orthodox men has rattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition and raised questions about its viability as the country presses on with the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu has until Monday to present the court with a plan to dismantle what the justices called a system that privileges the ultra-Orthodox at the expense of the secular Jewish public.
If that plan alienates the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers on whose support he depends, his coalition could disintegrate and the country could be forced to hold new elections.
Here's a breakdown of the decision and what it might spell for the future of Israeli politics.
WHAT DOES THE DECISION SAY?
Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.
But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full time in religious seminaries, or yeshivas.
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This years-old system has bred widespread resentment among the broader public — a feeling that has deepened during nearly six months of war. More than 500 soldiers have been killed in fighting, and tens of thousands of Israelis have had their careers, studies and family lives disrupted because of reserve duty.
The Supreme Court ruled that the current system is discriminatory and gave the government until Monday to present a new plan, and until June 30 to pass one. Netanyahu asked the court Thursday for a 30-day extension to find a compromise.
The court did not immediately respond to his request. But it issued an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly subsidies for religious students of enlistment age who have not received a deferral from the army. Those funds will be frozen starting Monday.
While the loss of state subsidies is certainly a blow, it appears the yeshivas can continue to function. Israel’s Channel 12 reported Friday that the state provides only 7.5% of all funding for the institutions. Netanyahu's coalition could also search for discretionary funds to cover the gaps.
HOW IS THE DECISION BEING RECEIVED?
Many Israelis are celebrating the court's decision, believing it spells an end to a system that takes for granted their military service and economic contributions while advantaging the ultra-Orthodox, or "Haredim" as they are called in Israel.
The religious exemption dates back to Israel’s founding, a compromise that the country's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, made with ultra-orthodox leaders to allow some 400 yeshiva students to devote themselves fully to Torah study. But what was once a fringe Haredi population has grown precipitously, making the exemption a hugely divisive issue to Israeli society.
Many ultra-Orthodox continue to receive government stipends into adulthood, eschewing getting paying jobs to instead continue full-time religious studies. Economists have long warned the system is unsustainable.
“The next government will have to hold a long overdue conversation about the future of the Haredi relationship to the state," commentator Anshel Pfeffer wrote in Israel's left-leaning daily, Haaretz.
“Now, the Haredim will have no choice but to take part in it. It won’t be just about the national service of its young men, it will also have to address fundamental questions about education and employment,” he said.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders have reacted angrily.
Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, called the court’s decision “unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”
The ultra-Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life, and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army. Although a small number have opted to serve in the military, many have vowed to fight any attempt to compel Haredim to do so.
“Without the Torah, we have no right to exist," said Yitzchak Goldknopf, leader of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism. "We will fight in every way over the right of every Jew to study Torah and we won’t compromise on that.”
WHY DOES IT THREATEN NETANYAHU?
Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, is known as a master political survivor. But his room for maneuver is limited.
Vowing to press forward with a war that has harmed the Israeli economy and asked much of its soldiers and reservists, Netanyahu could lose the support of the more centrist elements of his fragile national unity government if he tries to preserve the exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.
The two centrists in his fragile War Cabinet, both former generals, have insisted that all sectors of Israeli society contribute equally. One, Benny Gantz, has threatened to quit — a step that would destabilize a key decision-making body at a sensitive time in the war.
But the powerful bloc of ultra-Orthodox parties — longtime partners of Netanyahu — want draft exemptions to continue.
The ultra-Orthodox parties have not said what they will do if they lose their preferential status. But if they decide to leave the government, the coalition would almost certainly collapse and the country could be forced into new elections, with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls amid the war.
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Prague Krakow Berlin 2018. Berlin 2022
EV, Taormina 1+2 2017.
I wish i was the souvenir you kept your house key on..
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Worth the read.
Opinion
Peter Maass is the author of “Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War.” He covered the Bosnia war for The Post, and the invasion of Iraq for the New York Times Magazine.
How does it feel to be a war-crimes reporter whose family bankrolled a nation that’s committing war crimes?
I can tell you.
I covered the genocide in Bosnia for The Post, wrote a book about it, and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, among other conflict-ridden countries. Also, my ancestors were key funders of Jewish emigration to British-controlled Palestine. The Warburgs and Schiffs donated millions of dollars to that cause, and during the war between Jews and Arabs that started in 1948, they helped raise vast sums for the new state of Israel. When Golda Meir made an emergency fundraising visit to the United States, one of the philanthropists she met with was an uncle of mine who led the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
As Israeli forces grind through Gaza in what the International Court of Justice defines as a “plausible” case of genocide, my family’s history of philanthropy runs into my familiarity with war crimes. When Israel bombs and shoots civilians, blocks food aid, attacks hospitals and cuts off water supplies, I remember the same outrages in Bosnia. When people in a Gaza flour line were attacked, I thought of the Sarajevans killed waiting in line for bread, and the perpetrators who in each case insisted the victims were slaughtered by their own side.
Atrocities tend to rhyme.
When I reported from besieged Sarajevo, I stayed in a hotel that was smack on the front line, with Serbian snipers routinely firing at civilians walking under my window. While exiting or entering the Holiday Inn, sometimes I was the one getting shot at. On a spring day in 1993, I heard the familiar crack and whistle of a sniper’s bullet, followed by an awful scream. I went to my window and saw a wounded civilian trying to crawl to safety. Writing in The Post more than three decades ago, I described the man’s desperate shouts as “a mad howl of a person pushed over the edge. It came from the lungs, from the heart, from the mind.”
I was thinking of Haris Bahtanovic — I tracked him to a nearby hospitalthe next day — as I watched an agonizing video from Gaza not long ago. The video shows a grandmother, Hala Khreis, trying to leave a neighborhood that Israeli forces are surrounding. Walking tentatively, she holds the hand of her grandson, who is five years old and carries a white flag. Suddenly, a shot rings out and she crumples to the ground dead. Sniper rifles have high-powered scopes — the shooters can see who they are shooting. The attacks on Khreis in 2024 and Bahtanovic in 1993 occurred in daytime and were not accidental.
Millions of Jews in America feel connected to Israel’s creation. Maybe our ancestors gave or raised money, maybe they went and fought, maybe they donated to Zionist organizations. What’s a Jew to do now? Everyone makes their own choices, but my experience of war crimes taught me that being Jewish means standing against any nation that commits war crimes.
Any.
I noted in my Bosnia book how being a Jew and seeing an actual genocide made me understand, more than before, the precariousness of minorities and the necessity of speaking out as atrocities emerge. That imperative strengthens if your government abets the crimes or your tribe commits them.
Israel and its supporters contend that what’s happening in Gaza is a legal and righteous response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters. It’s evident that war crimes were committed by Hamas: Israelis were shot in their homes at kibbutzim, and concertgoers at the Nova music festival were massacred. We’ve seen the pictures and videos, and while some allegations have turned out to be false, the evidence of brutal crimes is solid. Hamas is still holding more than 100 hostages.
That does not give Israel a pass to respond as it pleases. An eye for an eye — or a hundred eyes for one eye — is not a thing in international law. A key tenet of the laws of warfare is that an attack that endangers civilians must be militarily necessary, and any civilian casualties that occur must be proportional to the military gain. What that means, in plainer language, is that you cannot slaughter a lot of civilians for a minor battlefield gain, and you certainly cannot target civilians, as appears to have happened in the killing of Hala Khreis and many other Palestinians. So far, more than 30,000 people have been reported killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including more than 13,000 children.
The victims of genocide — which Jews were in the Holocaust — are not gifted with the right to perpetrate one. Of course, a war-crimes court should be the arbiter of whether Israel’s actions in Gaza qualify as genocide, but sufficient evidence for indictments appears to exist because the legal definition of genocide is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The key words are “in part.” Holocaust levels of killing are not required to reach the legal standard.
This puts all Americans, not just American Jews, on the spot. The U.S. government is Israel’s principal supporter, by virtue of the bombs and other weapons that continue to be provided to the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We are all implicated.
The idea of Jews protecting the rights of Palestinians is not as new as you might think. Before the Holocaust, my ancestors were part of the “non-Zionist” movement that supported Jewish emigration to Palestine but opposed the creation of a Jewish state. The non-Zionist position was based on the concern that a Jewish state would result in violence and reinforce accusations that Jews were not loyal to America.
For example, in the May 21, 1917, edition of the New York Times, a headline reads: “Mr. Schiff Not for Zionism: He Would Establish Jewish Population, Not a Nation, in Palestine.” The story is about my great-great-grandfather, Jacob Schiff, the Gilded Age financier who bankrolled efforts to help persecuted Jews flee Europe. Theidealistic non-Zionist goal was for the Jews who were settling in Palestine to make a deal with the Arabs already living there that would not give either side complete government control. Two decades later, in 1936, my great-grandfather, Felix Warburg, who had married Schiff’s daughter, accurately warned that establishing a Jewish state would lead to “bloody heads and misfortune.”
Jewish settlement continued in Palestine, of course, and the Holocaust accelerated momentum for creating a national homeland there — for which my ancestors dutifully opened their wallets. But there is a largely forgotten history of what then happened in a dissenting corner of America’s Jewish community. As Geoffrey Levin writes in his relevant new book, “Our Palestine Question,” since the founding of Israel “there have been American Jews deeply unsettled by Israeli policies toward both the Palestinian refugees and Arabs living under Israeli rule,” who are fiercely dedicated to the issue.
These dissenting Jews were unsettled by, among other things, the exodus of more than 700,000 Arabs when Israel was established; it’s what Arabs refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” Israel refused to let these Arabs return to their homes and, over the decades, constructed a repressive apparatus of military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. While Levin’s book was published just before the latest convulsion, he astutely noted that “some American Jews today see their support for Palestinian rights as a meaningful expression of their Jewish identity.”
My Jewish identity was always a bit vague because my ancestors were German Jews who assimilated at the speed of cultural sound; when I was growing up, we even had a Christmas tree. (They donated and spent their money at the same pace; the fortune was mostly gone by the time I came of age.) I began to feel more Jewish while covering the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims. What Levin points to — the defense of Palestinians increasingly being an act of Jewish identity, particularly for younger Jews — feels right for me, too.
It was near Sen. Charles E. Schumer’s home in Brooklyn that I recently saw how this long-ignored movement has found new propulsion. I live a 10-minute walk from the Democratic majority leader’s apartment building, which the New York Police Department barricades whenever a protest approaches. Though Schumer now calls for early elections that might unseat Netanyahu, he supports military aid to Israel and is the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in the United States. Protesters are shunted a few hundred yards away to Prospect Park, and about 100 of them happened to be there when I walked by last month.
Some waved professionally printed, multicolored placards that said “Hands Off Rafah — Stop the Genocide,” and “Ceasefire Now — Let Gaza Live.” But there was also a woman wearing a kaffiyeh around her waist, who held a piece of cardboard with a handwritten message: “Jewish Nurse Against Occupation.” She was protesting not just the killing of civilians but the decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territory, which is the underlying problem.
These protesters are part of a movement that includes Jewish demonstrators who wear T-shirts that say “Not In Our Name.” Their potent voices undermine the argument that all protests against Israeli violence are antisemitic. They help legitimize global opposition to what’s being done in Gaza, and they defend not only Palestinian lives but Jewish lives, too, because they contradict the misbegotten idea that Jews as a whole are to blame for what Israel is doing.
I did not take the activist route after graduating from college. I chose journalism, then wars chose me. Through the years, I realized that exposing war crimes — wherever they occur — is central to my identity as an American, a journalist and a Jew.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/09/israel-gaza-war-crimes-genocide/
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Booms and air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem early Sunday after Iran launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles toward Israel in an unprecedented revenge mission that pushed the Middle East ever closer to a regionwide war.
The attack marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Condemnation was swift, with France saying that “Iran has crossed a new threshold with regard to its destabilizing activities and is risking a potential military escalation.” Britain called the attacks “reckless.”
There was no immediate word from authorities on whether any explosions were an incoming attack. Air raid sirens were reported in numerous places, including northern Israel, southern Israel, the northern West Bank and the Dead Sea near the Jordanian border. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating a 10-year-old boy in critical condition in the Bedouin area in the Arad region but provided no details.
IRAN
The Latest | Iran launches its first direct military attack against Israel
Sirens and explosions in Jerusalem after Iran fires drones and missiles
Booms heard in Jerusalem after Iran launches missiles and drones at Israel
U.S. forces downed some of the Iran-launched drones flying toward Israel, according to a U.S. defense official and two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The defense official said the effort to intercept the attack was ongoing.
Israel's military said over 100 drones had been fired. It didn't mention ballistic missiles, which are less easily shot down, but Iran said they were part of the attack.
“We are monitoring the threat,” the Israeli military’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, announced in a nationwide television address.
Iran had vowed revenge since an April 1 airstrike in Syria killed two Iranian generals inside an Iranian consular building. Iran accused Israel of being behind the attack. Israel hasn’t commented on it.
Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The war erupted after Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups backed by Iran, carried out a devastating cross-border attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others. An Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, according to local health officials.
Almost immediately after the war erupted, Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon, began attacking Israel’s northern border. The two sides have been involved in daily exchanges of fire, while Iranian-backed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have launched rockets and missiles toward Israel.
In a statement carried late Saturday by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged launching “dozens of drones and missiles towards the occupied territories and positions of the Zionist regime.”
In a later statement, the Revolutionary Guard issued a direct warning to the U.S.: “The terrorist U.S. government is warned any support or participation in harming Iran’s interests will be followed by decisive and regretting response by Iran’s armed forces."
IRNA also quoted an anonymous official saying ballistic missiles were part of the attack. A ballistic missile moves on an arch trajectory, heading up into space before gravity brings the weapon down at a speed several times faster than the speed of sound.
Israel has missile defense systems capable of targeting ballistic missiles. However, in a massive attack involving multiple drones and missiles, the likelihood of a strike making it through is higher.
Iran has a vast arsenal of drones and missiles. Online videos shared by Iranian state television purported to show delta-wing-style drones resembling the Iranian Shahed-136s long used by Russia in its war on Ukraine. The slow-flying drones carry bombs. Ukraine has successfully used both surface-to-air missiles and ground fire to target them.
Israel has a multilayered air-defense network that includes systems capable of intercepting a variety of threats including long-range missiles, cruise missiles, drones and short-range rockets.
Hagari, the army spokesman, said Israel was “prepared and ready." But he cautioned that the air defenses are not 100% effective and urged the public to heed safety instructions.
The army ordered residents in the Golan Heights — near the Syrian and Lebanese borders — as well as the southern towns of Nevatim and Dimona and the Red Sea resort of Eilat “to stay near protective spaces until further notice.” Dimona is home to Israel’s main nuclear facility, and Nevatim has a major air base.
The army’s Home Front Command canceled school on Sunday and limited public gatherings to no more than 1,000 people. Israel closed its airspace and canceled all flights.
Earlier Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “Whoever harms us, we will harm them.”
In Washington, President Joe Biden cut short a weekend trip to his beach house in Delaware to return to the White House. He was set to convene a principals meeting of the National Security Council on Saturday to discuss the unfolding attack, the White House said.
“The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, was in Israel over the weekend consulting with Israeli defense officials about the Iranian threat. The Central Command oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a warning to both Israel and the U.S. “Should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” it wrote online. “It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
For days, Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had threatened to “slap” Israel for its Syria strike.
In Iran’s capital, Tehran, witnesses saw long lines at gas stations early Sunday as people appeared worried about what may come next. Dozens of hard-liners demonstrated in support of the attack at Palestine Square.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling on multiple locations in south Lebanon following Iran's launch of drones. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched “dozens” of Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military site in the Golan Heights early Sunday. It was not immediately clear if there was any damage.
Countries in the region began to close their airspace.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP correspondents Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Michael Balsamo in New York, Krutika Pathi in New Delhi, Stephen Graham in Berlin, Thomas Adamson in Paris, and Zeke Miller and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden cut short a weekend stay at his Delaware beach house to meet with his national security team at the White House Saturday and monitor the situation in the Middle East as Iran launched an attack against Israel.
Tensions are at their highest since the Israel-Hamas war began six months ago after a suspected Israeli strike this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria killed 12 people, including two senior Iranian generals in the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force. Iran has promised to retaliate against Israel, and U.S. and Israeli officials have been bracing for an attack, raising concerns about the conflict escalating into a wider regional war.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a Saturday statement that “Iran has begun an airborne attack against Israel.” She added: “The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”
IRAN
Booms and sirens in Israel after Iran launches ballistic missiles and drones in unprecedented attack
The Latest | Iran launches its first direct military attack against Israel
Sirens and explosions in Jerusalem after Iran fires drones and missiles
Biden boarded the presidential helicopter from a park near his house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to return to Washington Saturday afternoon shortly before Israeli officials confirmed that they had detected drones being launched toward their territory from Iran. He was set to convene a principals meeting of the National Security Council in the White House Situation Room to discuss the events and plan the U.S. response.
The Pentagon reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with his Israeli counterpart “to discuss urgent regional threats ... and made clear that Israel could count on full U.S. support to defend Israel against any attacks by Iran and its regional proxies." National security adviser Jake Sullivan also spoke with his counterpart to reinforce Washington's “ironclad commitment to the security of Israel.”
Biden on Friday said the United States was "devoted” to defending Israel and that “Iran will not succeed.” Asked by reporters what his message was for Iran, the president’s only reply was: “Don’t.”
He ignored a question about what would trigger a direct U.S. military response, and when asked how imminent an Iranian attack on Israel was, Biden said he did not want to get into secure information, “but my expectation is sooner than later.”
The U.S., along with its allies, have sent direct messages to Tehran to warn against further escalating the conflict.
During the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, there have been near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group along the Israel-Lebanon border. U.S. officials have recorded more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on U.S. forces at bases in those countries since war started on Oct. 7.
One attack in late January killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a massive air assault, hitting more than 85 targets at seven locations in Iraq and Syria.
Meantime, on Saturday, commandos from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard rappelled from a helicopter onto an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz and seized the vessel.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the U.S. strongly condemned the seizure and urged Iran to release the ship and crew immediately.
“We will work with our partners to hold Iran to account for its actions,” she said.
Also Saturday, the Israeli-occupied West Bank also saw some of the worst violence since Hamas' attack on Israel.
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Price reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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