Category: Gush Shalom

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

06/05/24

During more than half a year of Israel’s war in Gaza, we again and again heard of terrible atrocities. Most of them were perpetrated openly and with impunity, with no real investigation and certainly without anyone getting punished. The grisly affair of the recently discovered mass graves seems the latest installment in this comedy of unending horror. This at least should get an objective investigation!
Adam Keller

Political groups in Israel call for
Investigation of Gaza mass graves

We, the undersigned citizens of Israel of activist organizations, are calling for an independent investigation to have a complete and objective inquiry into the horror of the mass graves in the Gaza Strip.

The discovery of mass graves near two hospitals, Al Shifa and Nasser, with hundreds of bodies of Palestinians – some of them medical staff and patients – underscores the need for a thorough investigation, including by independent forensic experts, to be carried out by Human Rights organizations from countries not involved in the war. The findings must be transparent and open to the public worldwide.

In particular, the assertion that some of the bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs must be thoroughly investigated – if true, it means that extrajudicial executions had taken place.

Should the Israeli government and armed forces prevent such an investigation and deny to Human Rights investigators access to the Gaza Strip, they would not be able to avoid the taint and suspicion that they have something to hide and that heinous crimes were indeed perpetrated.

Adam Keller, spokesperson for Gush Shalom

Yossi Schwartz for the ISL, the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

UCLA: 2,100 anti-war protestors arrested. Zero counter-protestors.

National Campaign for Justice

Earlier this week, violence erupted on the campus of UCLA when pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked the peaceful pro-Palestinian encampment with fireworks, chairs, sticks, and chemical spray.

The New York Times examined more than 100 videos filmed by journalists, witnesses, and protesters and found that violence went on for nearly five hours, while campus police mostly hid in a nearby building. Three hours into the melee the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol arrived and then stood 300 feet away for over an hour as the violence continued.

In fact, according to the NYTimes video analysis, “Just four minutes after the officers arrived, counter-protesters attacked a man standing dozens of feet from the officers.” The report goes on:[1]

“Twenty minutes after police arrive, a video shows a counter-protester spraying a chemical toward the encampment during a scuffle over a metal barricade. Another counter-protester can be seen punching someone in the head near the encampment after swinging a plank at barricades. Fifteen minutes later, while those in the encampment chanted ‘Free, free Palestine,’ counter-protesters organized a rush toward the barricades. During the rush, a counter-protester pulls away a metal barricade from a woman, yelling ‘You stand no chance, old lady.’”

A law student interviewed by the Guardian[2] after describing what he saw as a “battle,” said the fighting “reminded me of January 6. It was terrifying.”

Yet, as of today, no one has been arrested for their actions that night, even though the faces of many violent protesters in the videos are clearly visible. Without accountability, counter-protesters will know they can attack with impunity and the violence on campuses will escalate nationwide.

Contact LA District Attorney George Gascón and California Attorney General Rob Bonta and demand prosecution of violent protesters and a full investigation into the police response now. SIGN & SEND

Some anti-war pro-Palestinian protesters have been violent too and others have used rhetoric that threatens or harasses pro-Israel students. And many of the peaceful protesters have broken laws in civil disobedience setting up illegal encampments or even taking over a floor of an entire building.

That’s why more than 2,100 people have been arrested in pro-Palestinian protests on campuses so far, including 200 UCLA students arrested the day after the night time riot.[3]

None of the UCLA arrests were a follow up to the violence of the night before, all those counter-protesters went home free — no tear gas, no zip ties, no detainment — nothing. No, the UCLA arrests were of peaceful protesters practicing peaceful civil disobedience on the campus lawn.

Nationwide, the vast vast majority of protests have been peaceful and non-violent, but they have faced standoffs with police in riot gear, using tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings.

The injustice of largely peaceful anti-war protesters being arrested by the hundreds while violent counter-protesters attack encampments for hours, directly in front of law enforcement and no one is even detained, is dangerous. Very dangerous. It’s an invitation to counter-protesters to not be afraid to escalate violence nationwide.

Call on prosecutors in California to arrest the violent UCLA counter-protesters and fully investigate the response and lack of action by law enforcement now.

California Governor Gavin Newsom called the “limited and delayed” response by police at UCLA “unacceptable.” He went on to say “it demands answers.” We agree.

Thank you for sending your messages today.

LeeAnn Hall Director, National Campaign for Justice SUPPORT OUR WORK

[1] How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours [2] UCLA students describe violent attack on Gaza protest encampment: ‘It was terrifying’ [3] More than 2,100 people have been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

Hi, my name is Einat Gerlitz, and last year I refused to serve in the Israeli military.

A year ago, I was imprisoned in military prison for 87 days for refusing to enlist. Throughout the process of my refusal, I received the legal, political and social support of Mesarvot Network, the only network for Israeli conscientious objectors.

During these tough times of war, our hope lies in nonviolent civil resistance. That is why I’m proud to be part of Mesarvot Network, especially in the darkest of times, as we refuse to stay silent. Brave young people like Tal and Sofia are refusing to serve a cycle of violence, and by their refusal create an alternative.

Tal Mitnick, 18, was first imprisoned last December, and was the first public anti-war refuser.

He bravely went to prison while carrying the message “there is no military solution”. He is currently imprisoned for the third time, sentenced to 105 days in total. Tal believes that “more killing and more violence won’t bring back the lives lost on October 7.”

“Continuing the circle of revenge: ‘an eye for an eye,’ without thinking about an actual solution that would provide security and freedom to us all, will only lead to more killing and suffering,” as he recently told The Guardian. Tal has experienced hateful comments, has been called a traitor and has been told that he should have been killed in the Be’eri massacre, part of the Hamas attack on Southern Israel.

In a recent phone call from military prison, Tal told me there is no end in sight to these continuous imprisonments. He says that the support he receives from letters people send him helps him stay strong through this current imprisonment of 45 days.

Sofia Orr, 18, refused to serve in the Israeli military on February 25th.

Now she is serving her second prison sentence of 20 days, amounting to a total of 40 days. “I won’t serve an endless cycle of bloodshed” she recently said to The Times. Sofia’s strong belief in peace and in humane values gives her strength through her tough time in prison.

Sofia courageously says that violence cannot solve the situation – neither violence enacted by Hamas, nor by Israel. In a recent interview to France24 Sofia spoke up saying she refuses to enlist to serve the army of a government that only continues the circle of hurt and bereavement. With so much pain at this moment we find it important to publicly resist and refuse to take part in the military.

Sofia asked that I share with you that she had received many threats, and that she feels encouraged by the support that she received from around the world, that enables her and others to speak up and defend their right to resist militarism and fight for human rights.

From: Einat, Mesarvot Network

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

An appropriate and praiseworthy response to the carnage

07/03/24

An appropriate and praiseworthy response to the carnage: trade unionists refusing to load munitions for Israel’s war in Gaza

Note: We have gotten used to terrible news coming out of the Gaza Strip virtually every day. Still, now there is a record new low point when we thought we already reached rock bottom: the news of more than a hundred Ganzs being killed within minutes for the sole crime of being desperately hungry and trying to get to the truck carrying some of the far too scarce humanitarian supplies reaching the ruined city of Gaza.

The Israeli Army asserted that most of them were not killed directly by the soldiers’ shots, but rather were trampled in the panicked stampede. This might or might not be true – pending an objective investigation which will probably never be made, the exact circumstances cannot be clarified. It scarcely matters. It is Israel which consciously and deliberately created the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the Gazans’ desperate need for food. Killed directly by Israeli soldiers or killed while trying to get to the food which Israel denies to them – either way, the blood is entirely on Israel’s hands.

A few days before this new tragedy and atrocity, I and Yossi Schwartz – a fellow activist whom I have known and respected for many years – decided to draft and publish the following joint statement. Despite deep disagreements about the long range solution to the bleeding conflict tearing up this country, we have hardly any difference about the current horror in Gaza.

We have hammered out all details of the text, in a friendly discussion and minor debate with each other and with other fellow activists.

We had the final text prepared and ready to be unleashed just as this new piece of terrible news came – which of course makes our text all the more relevant and urgent. This statement is intended, in principle, for anyone in the world who cares about what happens in Gaza – but in particular, it is intended for anyone who is in any way involved in a trade union, most especially for anyone who might in some way influence the union’s decision making process.

Adam Keller

---

Joint Statement

The United States has a long-standing policy of providing Israel with massive amounts of military aid (which incidentally provides enormous profits to the American armament industries). This was greatly expanded and intensified since the outbreak of the current war in Gaza.

The constant flow of munitions from the United States – and to a lesser degree, from other Western countries – is completely indispensable for Israel to sustain its war. Israel’s own armament industry could in no way provide for a massive bombing campaign, in which Israel in a few months threw far more bombs on a very narrow and overcrowded strip of land than what the US itself did over years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Supplying arms to Israel has been traditionally justified as “helping Israel defend itself” and anyone objecting to it was castigated as “wanting Israelis to be exposed to danger”‘. However, the war which Israel launched – ostensibly as a response to the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, 2023 – was soon revealed to have not the slightest resemblance to any kind of “self defense”, and it was never meant to be such.

Rather, it is a completely unrestrained rampage, an orgy of killing and wanton destruction.

Under a constant barrage of enormous one-ton bombs – of which a constant supply is provided to Israel by the boatload – schools, universities, Mosques (and some Churches), libraries, public buildings of any kind and most of the private houses in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or greatly damaged. The city of Gaza was left in ruins, as were many smaller towns and villages. Thirty thousand Palestinians were killed, including more than ten thousand children, and the death toll continues to rise. A million and half people were driven out of their homes, to live in horrifying conditions under the open sky.

The International Court in the Hague, the highest tribunal set up to deal with violations of International Law, met to hear South Africa’s charge that Israel’s acts in the Gaza Strip may culminate in actual genocide – the most terrible of all crimes. Sixteen out of eighteen judges – prominent jurists of various countries and backgrounds – were unanimous in taking very seriously the danger of genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Specifically, The International Court found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures: ordering Israel to take all steps within its power to prevent genocidal acts, including preventing and punishing incitement to genocide, ensuring aid and services reach Palestinians under siege in Gaza, and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Gaza.

The response of Israeli civil and military leaders was to make preparations for an all-out assault on the city of Rafah – the very place to which Israel had driven, in earlier stages of the war, a million and half Gazans displaced from their homes. Israeli warplanes continue to pound Raffa, the southern town of the Gaza Strip with bunker-busting bombs. Pleas for a ceasefire continue to be ignored by Israel. Indeed, Israeli leaders persist in making preparations for a massive ground assault on Rafah, even though Israel’s own allies warn that this may lead to a terrible carnage and an untold humanitarian disaster. Yet President Biden’s making such dire predictions has not made him stop the constant supply of arms and munitions to Israel.

It was under these terrible circumstances that the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) issued an urgent appeal calling on “trade unions in relevant industries” to refuse to build weapons destined for Israel as well as refusing to transport such weapons.

Some unions in various countries did respond to that call. For example, five Belgian transport unions issued a joint statement saying they were refusing to load or unload arms shipments heading to the war zone, and the Barcelona dock workers’ union announced that it “would not permit activity, in our port, of ships containing war materiel” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

We the undersigned, Israeli citizens and activists in political organizations, who are shocked and horrified by the acts of the Israeli government and armed forces, and who want to see a future of brotherhood between Israelis and Palestinians, regard the above acts by Belgian and Catalan trade unions as an appropriate and praiseworthy response to the terrible carnage in Gaza. We call on all other trade unions worldwide to emulate that example, refuse to build weapons intended for Israel and to load or unload such weapons.

Adam Keller for Gush Shalom Yossi Schwartz for the ISL, RCIT section in Israel/ Occupied Palestine

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

wedish Human Rights Defender on Hunger Strike

26/02/24

Tel Aviv, February 21, 2024: Israeli authorities at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport have denied entry to a Swedish foreign national and Palestinian human rights defender arbitrarily citing “Public security or public safety or public order considerations”. Samira Khoshbakht, 42, a textile artist and craft teacher working with children, has started a hunger strike in protest of their detention after being denied entry to Israel/Palestine. Samira’s phone was taken, they have not been allowed to contact the Swedish embassy and are now held in a moldy cell.

Samira has stated: “Amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank endure daily brutality from Israeli settlers and soldiers. The media coverage of these violations is highly deficient, only a small fraction of the most extreme cases are reported. Just in the past few months, sixteen whole communities have been displaced. Therefore, the presence of human rights activists is crucial. Israel’s imprisonment and deportation of international human rights defenders under the guise of terrorism are unjustifiable actions. In accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, Israel is obliged to protect and promote our work. Our contribution is to observe and document what is happening on the ground and we are determined to continue doing so.”

Israel controls all access points to the Palestinian territories it occupies. Being denied entry by occupation authorities entails interrogation, forcible deportation and most often a ban on returning. In an extension of the oppression of Palestinian human rights, Israeli authorities continue targeting human rights defenders who speak out against its violations of international humanitarian law. Israel has denied entry to UN Special Rapporteurs on the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) since 2008. Lately, Israel has refused to extend the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the oPT’s visa. At the end of November 2023, human rights defender Allison Russell, a Scottish-born Belgian citizen, was arrested and then deported due to her work in reporting the ongoing attacks of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Far more brutal consequences for those that Israel wants to silence are implemented in the Gaza strip, where Israel has carried out targeted executions of journalists, outspoken academics, human rights defenders and their families.

We demand the immediate release of detained human rights defender Samira Khoshbakht and the cessation of tactics of violence and harassment against human rights defenders on the ground.

Link to press release:

https://palsolidarity.org/2024/02/swedish-human-rights-defender-on-hunger-strike-after-denied-entry-and-detained-by-israeli-authorities/

Contact: Email: info@ism-sweden.org

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

Back home on the Gaza Border – and the terrible war still goes on

A resident of a kibbutz on the Gaza border, who chose to remain anonymous, writes:

More than a hundred days of war, and I’m at the kibbutz again.

I haven’t slept here since October 7th. When I left it was still warm outside. Now, I’m wearing a sweater and still shivering. The Kibbutz is rather empty, but not quiet. There’re sounds of work, army vehicles, and especially loud cannons.

Even us kibbutz residents, who’re used to boom sounds, jump from them occasionally. There’s a new scent in the air. Smoke, gunpowder and something else I can’t identify. It’s bad, the kind of smell animals avoid.

I think that with all the news, the television, the tiktoks and tweets, we sometimes forget about simple things, like the human body. How it shivers when it’s cold, gets hungry when it’s lacking food. Tenses up when a bomb falls. It’s always fighting to hold on, eventually breaking down. For the body it’s only a matter of time.

Not far from me there are people who for 100 days have been feeling hell itself on their bodies. Gazan children who face the cold in sandals and short sleeve shirts. 136 hostages who slowly starve. The cannon that made my home shake sent a bomb that will tear down another. I think about that with every cannon I hear, and that sound is deafening. At least it silences those who say “we have no choice”, who say “victory”, who say “revenge”. In that silence only numbers are left. 100 days. Tomorrow 101. And every day another body loses the fight, and stops holding on.

My October 7th is over. For 15 hours my body was everything I had. My heartbeats. My ears, that heard shooting outside. My mouth, dry from thirst. But for me those 15 hours had an end. Since then more than a hundred days have passed, during which over 27,000 Gazans were massacred, including over 10,000 children. During which about 2 million people lost their homes, and entire neighborhoods were destroyed.

100 days. 101. 102. Already 127 days, and it is not yet over

For me, these numbers aren’t an invitation to mourn the dead. They don’t even make me think of the fact that after 100 days of war, no security or peace were achieved, only destruction. No, for me they are a reminder that so many more lives can be lost. So today don’t mourn in silence, but shout, for life, for the chance to save lives and the for future they deserve. Shout tomorrow too, and the day after that. This has to stop.

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

‘Israelis Don’t See Images From Gaza Because Our Journalists Are Not Doing Their Job’

15/12/23

From the horrifying live videos broadcast by Hamas terrorists on the morning of October 7 during their invasion of Israeli communities, to IDF soldiers entering Gaza, bombarded buildings, and long lines of refugees with few belongings – the Israel-Hamas war is probably the most visually documented war in history.

Pictures have great power. And that means those in power have a great interest in directing images toward their political narrative.

On this episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti, who has lived and reported from both southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, and is recognized as Israel’s first woman war photographer, talks to Esther Solomon about the striking visuals we have been exposed to since the October 7 massacre, the stories those images tell us and the Israeli obsession with a “victory photo.”

Saragusti is currently curating an exhibition called “Local Testimony”: a collection of the most iconic press photographs from the past year. It’s on show at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum until February.

The curation process for the exhibit started before October 7 and originally, Saragusti shares, “the two major themes were the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul and clashes in the West Bank between settlers and Palestinians, as well as between Palestinians and the military.”

The exhibition had to be completely rethought, of course. In the space that is dedicated to the Israel-Hamas war, the visitor is first met by a video that Roee Idan, a photographer for the news website Ynet and resident of Kibbutz Kfar Azza, took on the morning of October 7.

“It’s a short video showing Hamas militants paragliding into his kibbutz. Idan managed to send it to the newsroom, and when he went back to his home he was murdered. His wife Smadar was murdered too. Two of their children hid in the closet and survived. Their young daughter Avigail, who is 4 years old, was kidnapped to Gaza and was only recently released. It’s a very chilling image,” says Saragusti about seeing the beginning of the attack through the eyes of someone who didn’t survive it.

In the conversation, Saragusti also addresses the fact that Israeli mainstream media barely shows images of what’s happening in Gaza and isn’t regularly reporting on the dire situation in the Strip.

“The fact that Israeli audiences don’t see images from Gaza means that journalists are not doing their jobs,” she says. “They have to show the images. Hebrew-speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what’s going on in Gaza. We don’t see the atrocities, the rubble, the destruction and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different.”

Israelis fear that the world doesn’t see their pain and is only sympathizing with the Palestinians. Saragusti sees things differently. According to her, “The world saw the October 7 massacre. Journalists came to Israel, they saw the bodies, the remains of the Nova partygoers, the destruction in the kibbutzim. They delivered the message, they reported on it. But now the focus is somewhere else.

“The fact is that people outside of Israel are seeing a completely different picture of reality. If we don’t see what they are seeing, we won’t be able to understand the growing sentiment against us. The majority of people know what happened, they know there was a massacre, they understand Israel went through something devastating. The fact that we Israelis are living in a completely different dimension doesn’t work to our advantage. We need to deal with it.”

Haaretz Weekly Dec 13, 2023

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

‘Israelis Don’t See Images From Gaza Because Our Journalists Are Not Doing Their Job’

15/12/23

From the horrifying live videos broadcast by Hamas terrorists on the morning of October 7 during their invasion of Israeli communities, to IDF soldiers entering Gaza, bombarded buildings, and long lines of refugees with few belongings – the Israel-Hamas war is probably the most visually documented war in history.

Pictures have great power. And that means those in power have a great interest in directing images toward their political narrative.

On this episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti, who has lived and reported from both southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, and is recognized as Israel’s first woman war photographer, talks to Esther Solomon about the striking visuals we have been exposed to since the October 7 massacre, the stories those images tell us and the Israeli obsession with a “victory photo.”

Saragusti is currently curating an exhibition called “Local Testimony”: a collection of the most iconic press photographs from the past year. It’s on show at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum until February.

The curation process for the exhibit started before October 7 and originally, Saragusti shares, “the two major themes were the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul and clashes in the West Bank between settlers and Palestinians, as well as between Palestinians and the military.”

The exhibition had to be completely rethought, of course. In the space that is dedicated to the Israel-Hamas war, the visitor is first met by a video that Roee Idan, a photographer for the news website Ynet and resident of Kibbutz Kfar Azza, took on the morning of October 7.

“It’s a short video showing Hamas militants paragliding into his kibbutz. Idan managed to send it to the newsroom, and when he went back to his home he was murdered. His wife Smadar was murdered too. Two of their children hid in the closet and survived. Their young daughter Avigail, who is 4 years old, was kidnapped to Gaza and was only recently released. It’s a very chilling image,” says Saragusti about seeing the beginning of the attack through the eyes of someone who didn’t survive it.

In the conversation, Saragusti also addresses the fact that Israeli mainstream media barely shows images of what’s happening in Gaza and isn’t regularly reporting on the dire situation in the Strip.

“The fact that Israeli audiences don’t see images from Gaza means that journalists are not doing their jobs,” she says. “They have to show the images. Hebrew-speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what’s going on in Gaza. We don’t see the atrocities, the rubble, the destruction and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different.”

Israelis fear that the world doesn’t see their pain and is only sympathizing with the Palestinians. Saragusti sees things differently. According to her, “The world saw the October 7 massacre. Journalists came to Israel, they saw the bodies, the remains of the Nova partygoers, the destruction in the kibbutzim. They delivered the message, they reported on it. But now the focus is somewhere else.

“The fact is that people outside of Israel are seeing a completely different picture of reality. If we don’t see what they are seeing, we won’t be able to understand the growing sentiment against us. The majority of people know what happened, they know there was a massacre, they understand Israel went through something devastating. The fact that we Israelis are living in a completely different dimension doesn’t work to our advantage. We need to deal with it.”

Haaretz Weekly Dec 13, 2023

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

Fears of a Gaza Quagmire: Is Israel in Another Long War of Attrition?

15/12/23

The political and military echelons fantasize about a long war without any plans to end it, ignore the hostages, and believe the public is getting used to military losses

As the war in the Gaza Strip drags on, concern is rising among the public and the military (especially amongst reservists) that the campaign, which has continued for 69 days, could see stagnation and become a war of attrition. Israel has some experience with this. There are, in fact, three events in its history that have been labeled wars or campaigns of attrition.

The first, which is officially called the War of Attrition, was between Israel and Egypt (as well as, in the Jordan Valley, the Jordanian army and the Palestinian Liberation Organization). It began immediately after the end of the Six-Day War in June 1967 and lasted until August 1970, when, with American mediation and pressure, a cease-fire was reached between Egypt and Israel. It was, in fact, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser who first named it the War of Attrition.

Israel’s second war of attrition occurred in “the Syrian Enclave” (aka the Bashan salient) located on the path to Damascus immediately after the end of the Yom Kippur War in October of 1973. It continued for half a year, ending when Israel and Syria signed their Disengagement Agreement in May of 1974. The deal saw an exchange of prisoners and the withdrawal of the IDF from the enclave to the borders of the Golan Heights.

The third and longest war of attrition began in October of 1982 upon the Israeli army’s exit from Beirut at the end of the First Lebanon War, which had started in June of that year. It stretched on until Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in June of 2000.

These three wars were characterized by entrenchment along fixed lines, limited movement and raids, mutual attrition, high casualties, and increasing alienation between the battlefront and the home front, between the military and the public, which became indifferent.

Since October 7, over 1,570 people have died, been taken hostage, or gone missing on the Israeli side. Around 880 of these are civilians, during the first two days of the fighting. There were also 323 IDF troops and 60 police officers killed in the first days of the war (including six on the northern border) and another 111 who have died since the ground operation began. On Tuesday night alone, 10 were killed in one of the bloodiest battles with Hamas combatants.

In addition, six civilians have been killed by Hezbollah fire. The remaining are captive or missing and include non-Israelis. Of the hostages, 133 have been freed, while 135 are still in Hamas captivity and five are still missing. More than 6,000 civilians and soldiers have been wounded.

The Gaza mud

There is a clear sense that the public has become accustomed to these tidings, which rain down like something out of the Book of Job. Perhaps the law of large numbers is at work. It’s hard to accept the death or abduction of a single person or a few people, but 10 weeks after a disaster of the scale of October 7, the threshold for shock is higher.

This is apparent in the attitude of the government and the security establishment regarding the hostages. During the first weeks of the war, releasing the hostages was extremely low on their agenda – if it was on it at all. Under pressure from the families and the public, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government then woke up and bumped the issue up to the top of the list alongside the continuation of the combat.

However, after the week-long “pause” in fighting ended at the beginning of the month, the government took advantage of the Hamas violations of the exchange deal and went back to its old ways. Apparently, the hostages are again not a top priority.

This feeling has grown stronger in the wake of certain remarks by National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi. The first of these, made at the start of the war, gave rise to the impression that the hostage issue was unimportant to the government. On Saturday, Hanegbi was asked a hypothetical question. What would Israel do if Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, were to surround himself with hostages?

Hanegbi replied: “That would be a heart-rending dilemma.” The answer provoked anger, especially among the captives’ families. Speaking with Haaretz, Hanegbi expressed regret for his remark and said: “My conclusion is that I will no longer answer hypothetical questions. I really think the captives are a supreme moral question.”

The danger of sinking into the mud of Gaza’s winter, both literally and figuratively, becomes even more salient when it’s not at all clear what the true and realistic aims of the war are – and whether it’s even possible to achieve them. The government has defined two overall aims: causing the collapse of Hamas’ infrastructure, especially its military capabilities, and removing Hamas from power. Other goals have been defined alongside these, like assassinating the leaders of Hamas in Gaza: Sinwar, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa, Deif’s deputy.

Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet security service chief Ronen Bar have added that Hamas’ leaders outside Gaza, including those in Turkey and Qatar, are also legitimate targets for assassination. These are statements that they might regret and which they know are not realistic, certainly while the fighting continues.

The IDF has managed to make some significant achievements. The rocket fire is diminishing from day to day. About 10 senior Hamas members at the level of battalion commanders and a brigade commander have been eliminated in intelligence operations and IDF fire. About 7,000 Hamas fighters have been killed, among the 19,000 people killed in the Gaza Strip. Several thousand more have been wounded. The killed and the wounded constitute about 1 percent of the total inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, a great many of them children.

The military proudly uses and has become enamored with the term “maneuver.” This can be understood in the context of the criticism against it in recent years, whose harbinger of wrath – if not the herald messiah – was Maj. Gen. (res.) Itzhak Brik. He argued that the IDF ground forces were not prepared or ready for any war. But the tables have turned.

Brik, who believed his own wrathful prophecies, called for refraining from a ground entry into Gaza. He even became a pawn in the hands of Netanyahu, who summoned him for a meeting ostensibly to ask for his advice but actually to serve himself. Brik cast the blame for the failure to stop the events of October 7 on Military Intelligence head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva and Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman. Brik was right – they are to blame. But in casting the blame, he omitted – until he later corrected himself – Netanyahu, Gallant, and every other member of the government.

All the time in the world

Maneuver warfare is a tactical or strategic element that serves as a means of achieving a military advantage and especially victory in a war. The idea of using rapid movement through the massive use of tanks and armored vehicles to disrupt the enemy’s equilibrium is not new.

Despite the IDF’s successful combat maneuvers and although the morale in Hamas is low and it’s suffering serious blows, it still has at least another several thousand fighters and units that are fairly functional, whose members continue to pop out from the underground tunnels. Hamas is able to use hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, that impede IDF soldiers and to continue to fire rockets over long distances, even to the center of the country, as we saw and heard on Monday. Itzhak Brik. Called for refraining from a ground operation.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

Even though Netanyahu, Gallant, and the security establishment are publicly speaking as though they have all the time in the world, it’s clear even to them that the time Israel has to continue the war is running out. This is because of pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration (the most pro-Israel administration ever), the cost to the economy, and the fear of stagnation.

Indeed, a month ago, Netanyahu instructed Hanegbi to establish a forum to discuss “the day after Hamas.” The forum includes representatives of several branches of the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer has also joined it, primarily because of his familiarity with the United States.

The forum is supposed to discuss all possible scenarios for rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and establishing a civilian government there that doesn’t have a military capability, as residents of communities near the border won’t return to their homes if a threat against them remains. The most reasonable candidate to replace Hamas is the Palestinian Authority, but it’s setting tough conditions for agreeing to accept the reins of governance – not only to Israel but also to the United States.

Netanyahu is causing even bigger problems. He declared that he wouldn’t allow the PA to take responsibility for Gaza and that Israel would maintain security control there. Gallant has also created difficulties by talking about fighting continuing for as long as another year. Soldiers on their way to the Gaza Strip border. The IDF has fallen in love with the word ‘maneuver.’Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz

They are also demanding the establishment of a security buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip. So far, the only security zones that have been inadvertently created are inside Israel, along the border with Gaza, and along the border with Lebanon, where residents have been evacuated from their communities.

Such talk means that the IDF will remain in most of the Gaza Strip, or at least large parts of it. The meaning of this, as the veterans like myself of the now-disbanded Sayeret Shaked special forces unit learned when we were put in charge of routine security in Gaza from 1967 to 1971, is incessant friction with the population and guerilla fighters – in essence, a war of attrition varying in intensity. And this is all without even beginning to discuss the question of how quiet will be restored on the northern border, given that Hezbollah is constantly establishing new facts on the ground.

Yossi Melman Ha’aretz Dec 14, 2023

Source: Gush Shalom – Analysis:

Silencing Palestine: A message from Ahmed Abu Artema

“This is the call of all the Palestinian families, the thousands of children who were killed, including my son Abdullah. Our call is to all free people across the world. Please stop this genocide.”

By Ahmed Abu Artema and Neta Golan December 11, 2023

I am an Israeli anti-zionist peace activist. Ahmed Abu Artema and I met on different sides of the fence that besieges the Gaza Strip and have been friends ever since. A few weeks ago, we were drafting an opinion piece together. I was preparing to send him my draft when I received news that Israeli warplanes had shelled his home in Rafah in southern Gaza. I panicked and called his phone. It was off.

Ahmed is a Palestinian poet and a journalist. In 2018, he posted a poem on social media:

“I looked up at the birds in the sky, flying through the trees on both sides of the barbed wire fence without being stopped. ‘Why do we complicate simple matters? Is it not the right of people to move freely like birds as they wish?’ What is simpler than this? The birds decide to fly, so they fly.”

In his post, Ahmed asked: What would happen if hundreds of thousands of Palestinians walked peacefully and crossed the fence that separates them from the lands that they had been expelled from in 1948? Ahmed believed nonviolent popular action could help his people regain their rights and free themselves from the world’s largest open-air prison.

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His poem inspired the Great March of Return, in which unarmed Palestinians marched daily to the heavily militarised fence for over a year.

Our group of anti-Zionist Israelis would go as close as we could to Gaza to welcome the refugees home. But we were only able to wave at our friends from a distance or speak over the phone. The fence that separated us also separated the Palestinian protesters from their basic rights, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Resolution 194.

The question that Ahmed posed in his post was soon answered: the unarmed protesters were branded as “terrorists” and were met with sniper bullets. The world watched as 214 Palestinians, including children, journalists, medics, and protestors with disabilities, were killed and over 36,100 wounded. UN agencies and human rights organizations reported and denounced this, but nothing was done to stop the killing. No arrest warrants were issued for the killers and those who gave the orders.

In response to the slaughter of demonstrators, Ahmed explained, “Our will for life is stronger than despair. We struggle to live…Palestinians continue to protest every week because we have no other choice, but to escape towards life.”

In the first weeks of the current Israeli assault, Ahmed recorded a video explaining that Israel was clearly targeting civilians.

In Ahmed’s last voice message to me before his house was bombed, he wanted our article to remind people that the history of this genocide did not begin on October 7, but in 1948 — that the world ignored the suffering of Palestinians and only paid attention when it affected Israelis. He said that this is a political, not a military problem, rooted in deep injustice and oppression suffered by Palestinians. He wanted to cite Smotrich’s Plan, an Israeli strategy to effectively complete the expulsion of Palestinians that began with the 1948 Nakba.

The day after Ahmed’s house was targeted, I got an automated message that his mobile phone had been turned on. This meant he was alive! But I soon learned that though Ahmed suffered second-degree burns and was in stable condition, the Israeli Occupation Forces had killed his 12-year-old son Abdullah, his 9-year-old niece Jude, his stepmother, and two of his aunts.

After this, I didn’t hear from Ahmed for a while. At times, I didn’t know if he — or any of my friends in Gaza, for that matter — were alive. Another mutual friend of ours, Khalil Abu Yehye, was killed, together with his wife, two daughters, mother, and brother; their entire family, like so many others, is now entirely wiped out.

Nowadays in Israel, all it takes to be fired, arrested, charged with “supporting terrorism,” and deported is to express sorrow and pain over the killing of children over the bombing of Gaza or expressing any dissent and refusing to be complicit in this genocide. Palestinians with Israeli IDs and in the West Bank are arrested and experience far worse. In the Gaza Strip, a journalist, activist, or influencer accused of “supporting Hamas” may expect to be targeted, like Ahmed was, and have their family destroyed by a missile from an Israeli warplane. Thousands of bodies are still trapped under the rubble in Gaza, but according to current data, we know that at least 68 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the airstrikes since October 7, many of them in their homes with their families.

When I managed to talk to Ahmed again, he sent me a recording for people outside of Gaza, in which he said:

“It is very clear now that Israel is working to displace the Palestinians from their land…Why has Israel killed so far 5500 Palestinian children? Simply because Israel has impunity and will not face accountability. Because Israel is completely backed by the U.S. administration and Western governments. We are not only under Israeli attack only. We are under Israeli and American attacks. We cannot face this horrible Israeli and American genocide campaign alone.

This is the call of all the Palestinian families. The call of thousands of Palestinian children who were killed, including my son Abdullah. Our call is to all free people across the world. Please stop this genocide…stand on the right side of history. Stand with the oppressed and say loudly, ‘No to regimes which are based on ethnic cleansing and massacres’.”

Gaza is being silenced. We must continue to amplify their voices and demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unhindered access to aid, and an agreement for the release of all the Israeli hostages and all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. These are dark times, but we cannot afford to give in to despair. We must follow the example of Palestinians and, in Ahmed’s words, “escape towards life.”

Before you go – We need your help. Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent.

With your support, we will continue covering the ongoing events in Gaza and across Palestine, as well as amplifying the Palestine movement worldwide. Together, we will make sure to keep reporting Palestinian stories, even when the rest of the world looks away.