Anadolu Agency – December 3, 2023
Death toll soars to over 15,500 as Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip continue
Anadolu staff
The death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surged to 15,523 since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged Palestinian enclave announced Sunday.
"The toll of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip reached 15,523 martyrs" since Oct. 7, ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qedra said in a news conference.
The number of wounded through the same period has risen to 41,316, Al-Qedra added.
On the number of killed healthcare personnel, al-Qedra confirmed that total at 281, with hundreds injured. Additionally, 56 ambulances and the same number of health facilities have been completely destroyed, while 20 hospitals are out of service, along with 46 primary care centers, he added.
Al-Qedra noted that Israeli forces arrested four paramedics on Saturday despite their prior coordination, as they were heading northward from Khan Yunis in the south to evacuate the wounded.
"The detainees include the director of ambulance services in southern Gaza, Anis al-Astal, and paramedics Muhammad Abu Samak, Hamdan Anaba, and Abdel Karim Abu Ghali," he said.
Israel still holds 35 healthcare professionals from the Gaza Strip, including Mohammed Abu Selmiya, the general director of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, "under harsh conditions and interrogation under torture, hunger, and thirst," added the official.
He also confirmed that since Oct. 7, a total of 403 wounded and sick have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to receive treatment abroad.
Meanwhile, more than 1.5 million displaced people are in shelters, he added.
Calling for "immediate action" to establish a humanitarian corridor for medical supplies, fuel, field hospitals, medical teams, and the evacuation of hundreds of wounded, al-Qedra urged the UN and the World Health Organization to exert pressure on Israel to "immediately release our healthcare professionals."
He emphasized the need to "find effective and urgent mechanisms to prevent the humanitarian and health disaster for more than 1.5 million displaced persons in shelters."
"The wounded are bleeding to death due to a lack of required health services in northern Gaza, as a result of the Israeli occupation targeting the remaining hospitals to take them out of service and forcing the population to evacuate," said al-Qedra.
"The Israeli occupation wants to end the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip, either by killing or forced displacement under bombardment. It has expanded the targeting of civilians after the cease-fire, leaving no inch in the Gaza Strip without bombardment," he added.
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause.
At least 509 Palestinians have been killed and 1,316 injured since Friday in Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.
The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/death-toll-soars-to-over-15-500-as-israeli-attacks-on-gaza-strip-continue/3072040
Daily Sabah – December 3, 2023
Israel issues evacuation orders for southern Gaza amid brutal bombing
Israel shifted Sunday its brutal military operation in Gaza toward the southern half of the territory and issued evacuation orders for more areas in and around the city of Khan Younis.
Heavy bombardments were reported overnight and into Sunday in the area of Khan Younis and the southern city of Rafah, as well as parts of the north that had been the focus of Israel's blistering air and ground campaign.
Many of the territory’s 2.3 million people are crammed in the south after Israeli forces ordered civilians to leave the north in the early days of the 2-month-old war.
With the resumption of attacks, hopes receded that another temporary truce could be negotiated. A weeklong cease-fire, which expired Friday, had facilitated the release of dozens of Gaza-held Israeli and foreign hostages and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
"We will continue the war until we achieve all its goals, and it’s impossible to achieve those goals without the ground operation," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address Saturday night.
On Sunday, the Israeli military widened evacuation orders in and around Khan Younis, asking residents of at least five more areas and neighborhoods to leave for their safety.
Residents said the Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering them to move south to Rafah or to a coastal area in the southwest. "Khan Younis city is a dangerous combat zone," the leaflets read.
The main hospital in Khan Younis received at least three dead and dozens wounded Sunday morning from an Israeli strike that hit a residential building in the eastern part of the city, according to an Associated Press journalist at the hospital.
Separately, the bodies of 31 people who were killed in Israeli bombardment across the central areas of the strip were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah, said Omar al-Darawi, an administrative employee at that hospital.
AP video showed bodies in white body bags on the ground outside the hospital in Deri al-Balah as dozens of people held funeral prayers Sunday morning. The bodies were then taken on a truck for burial.
One woman wept, cradling the body of a child on her lap as she sat on a chair. Another adult carried the body of a baby as he got into a truck.
Mass displacement
U.N. monitors said in a report issued before the latest evacuation orders that those who were told to leave make up about one-quarter of the territory of Gaza - home to nearly 800,000 people before the war.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has warned Israel to avoid significant new mass displacement.
The Israeli military claimed Sunday that its fighter jets and helicopters struck targets in the Gaza Strip, including tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons storage facilities, while a drone killed five Hamas members.
In northern Gaza, rescue teams with little equipment scrambled Sunday to dig through the rubble of buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp and other neighborhoods in Gaza City in search for potential survivors and dead bodies.
"They strike everywhere," said Amal Radwan, a woman sheltering in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp. "There is the non-stop sound of explosions around us."
Mohamed Abu Abed, who lives in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, also said there were relentless airstrikes and shelling in his neighborhood and surrounding areas.
"The situation here is imaginable," he said. "Death is everywhere. One can die in a flash."
The Gazan Health Ministry said Saturday that the overall death toll in the strip since the Oct. 7 start of the war had surpassed 15,200, a sharp jump from the previous count of more than 13,300 on Nov. 20. It said 70% of the dead were women and children while more than 40,000 people had been wounded since the war began.
'Devastating'
U.S. appeals to protect civilians came after an offensive in the first weeks of the war devastated large areas of northern Gaza. Much of Gaza’s population is packed into the territory’s southern half. The territory itself, bordering Israel and Egypt to the south, is sealed, leaving residents with the only option of moving around within Gaza to avoid the bombings.
"Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating," U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters Saturday during the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said Israel was making "maximum effort" to protect civilians and the military has used leaflets, phone calls, and radio and TV broadcasts to urge Gazans to move from specific areas. He added that Israel is considering creating a security buffer zone that would not allow Gazans direct access to the border fence on foot.
Bombardments on Saturday destroyed a block of about 50 residential buildings in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City and a six-story building in the urban refugee camp of Jabalia on the northern edge of the city, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
More than 60 people were killed in the Shijaiyah strikes and more than 300 buried under the rubble, the monitors said, citing the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense, said rescuers lack bulldozers and other equipment to reach those buried under the rubble, confirming the Red Crescent estimate of about 300 people missing. He said the block had housed over 1,000 people.
"Retrieving the martyrs is extremely difficult," he said in video comments from the site of the attack.
Meanwhile, Harris told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in a meeting that "under no circumstances" would the U.S. permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, an ongoing siege of Gaza or the redrawing of its borders, according to a U.S. summary.
Daily Sabah – December 3, 2023
Muslim Americans vow to ditch Biden in 2024 over Gaza war stance
American Muslim community leaders from several swing states pledged to withdraw support for U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday at a conference in suburban Detroit, citing his refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war could cost him enough support within the Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
Leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania gathered behind a lectern that read "Abandon Biden, cease-fire now" in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
The Gazan Health Ministry on Saturday updated the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war to 15,200 Palestinians, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors. Israeli casualties in comparison are at 1,200 Israelis.
Biden’s unwillingness to call for a cease-fire has damaged his relationship with the American Muslim community beyond repair, according to Minneapolis-based Jaylani Hussein, who helped organize the conference.
"Families and children are being wiped out with our tax dollars," Hussein said. "What we are witnessing today is the tragedy upon tragedy."
Hussein, who is Muslim, told The Associated Press: "The anger in our community is beyond belief. One of the things that made us even more angry is the fact that most of us actually voted for President Biden. I even had one incident where a religious leader asked me, 'How do I get my 2020 ballot so I can destroy it?" he said.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates previously said the Biden administration has pushed for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, adding that "fighting against the poison of antisemitism and standing up for Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself have always been core values for President Biden."
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were critical components of the "blue wall" of states that Biden returned to the Democratic column, helping him win the White House in 2020. About 3.45 million Americans identify as Muslim, or 1.1% of the country's population, and the demographic tends to lean Democratic, according to Pew Research Center.
But leaders said Saturday that the community's support for Biden has vanished as more Palestinian men, women and children are killed in Gaza.
"We are not powerless as American Muslims. We are powerful. We don’t only have the money, but we have the actual votes. And we will use that vote to save this nation from itself," Hussein said at the conference.
The Muslim community leaders' condemnation of Biden does not indicate support for former President Donald Trump, the clear front-runner in the Republican primary, Hussein clarified.
"We don't have two options. We have many options. And we're going to exercise that," he said.
Thousands remain trapped under rubble in Gaza
Civil defense teams in Gaza Strip constantly targeted by Israeli bombardment even as equipment shortages hamper rescue effort, says spokesman
Thousands of bodies remain under the debris of buildings destroyed by ongoing Israeli attacks, civil defense teams in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday, with equipment shortages preventing their retrieval.
In a written statement published by Gaza's Interior Ministry, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said Israeli forces have been targeting their teams in the enclave constantly since Oct. 7.
"Thousands of martyrs are still under the rubble, and we cannot retrieve them. There are clear and significant deficiencies in our capabilities and mechanisms. We cannot reach the bodies under the debris in the northern Gaza Strip," said Basal, urging support for the civil defense unit.
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
More than 15,200 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.
Anadolu Agency – December 3, 2023
Israel using AI to identify potential civilian targets to maximize Palestinian casualties
Israeli army using intelligence application 'Habsora' to select targets in Gaza in one of deadliest military attacks on Palestinians since 1948 Nakba, says Israeli media investigative report
Israel is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure by using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potential civilian targets and maximize Palestinian casualties in the ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip, said two independent media organizations in their joint report published recently.
The report also highlighted the role of former and current intelligence sleuths in Tel Aviv in producing what has been described as one of the deadliest Israeli army attacks against Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba.
According to an investigation report by +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which interviewed several current and former sources in Israel's intelligence community who know the intelligence application "Habsora" or the Gospel in English, the Israeli army uses it to deliberately target civilian infrastructure, which provides beforehand information on how many civilians will lose their lives in attacks on automatically generated targets.
The Israeli military employs Habsora to select targets in Gaza, which speeds up the process of finding possible targets and contributes significantly to Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure.
As of Nov.10, the Israeli military attacked 15,000 targets in Gaza during the first 35 days of the intensified onslaught, according to a military spokesperson.
According to the research, when compared to previous attacks on Gaza, the current assault significantly increased the targeting of civilian infrastructure classified as "power targets" by the military. Private residences, public buildings, civilian infrastructure, and multi-story buildings were among the targets.
With a history of involvement in Gaza attacks, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure aims to put "civilian pressure" on Hamas, the research said, citing intelligence sources.
The report said intelligence units pre-examine and calculate the estimated number of potential targets, including homes, as well as the anticipated number of civilians living in those areas in Gaza, and as a result, the military is aware of the approximate number of civilians to be killed before launching an attack.
In one of the attacks, the Israeli military knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians to assassinate a high-ranking military commander of Hamas, the report said, citing intelligence agency sources.
- Habsora a ‘mass assassination factory’
Another reason for a higher civilian casualty rate in recent Tel Aviv attacks compared to previous similar ones is the widespread use of the Habsora system, AI technology developed by the Israeli military that can automatically generate targets at a rate "beyond what was previously possible."
In 2019, the Israeli military established a new unit to accelerate target generation through the use of AI in its operations.
The +972 and Local Call research also referred to former Israeli army chief Aviv Kochavi's in-depth interview with Ynet newspaper earlier this year, in which he mentioned that this unit is made up of "hundreds of officers and soldiers" and relies on AI capabilities.
Kochavi described the Habsora technology developed in this unit as a machine that, with the help of AI, processes large amounts of data better and faster than any human, transforming them into attack targets.
He said since its deployment in the 2021 Guardians of the Walls Operation, this machine has generated 100 new targets every day, surpassing the previous record of 50 targets generated annually in Gaza.
According to the +972 and Local Call research report, targets are automatically prepared and worked on according to a checklist.
They emphasized the fast-paced nature of the operation, comparing it to a factory where the evaluation is based on how many targets can be produced.
According to intelligence sources, Habsora generates automatic suggestions to attack private residences where individuals suspected of belonging to Hamas or Islamic Jihad reside. Israel then conducts extensive assassination operations by heavily bombing these homes, said the report.
Habsora can process "vast amounts of data that tens of thousands of intelligence officers couldn't handle" and suggests attack targets in real time, it added.
When Israel launched massive attacks, many top-level Hamas officials turned to underground tunnels, allowing the use of this system to locate and target other Hamas members' homes, the report said.
Yeni Safak – November 29, 2023
The anglosphere's Five Eyes is said to be on Gaza!
By Abdullah Muradoğlu
"Five Eyes" is the name given to the "Electronic Intelligence Alliance" among the post-World War II countries of the "Anglosphere," including the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The National Security Agency (NSA) in Australia's "Pine Gap" base monitors a large region through satellites. The coverage area of this base includes the Middle East and Africa.
An article titled "Targeting Palestine: Australia's Secret Support for Israel's Gaza Attack through Pine Gap" was featured on the Australian-based "Declassified Australia" news site. The report, authored by Peter Cronau, included information provided by David Rosenberg, who served at "Pine Gap" and the NSA for many years. According to these details, "Pine Gap" allegedly transfers communication and electronic intelligence data obtained in the Gaza Strip to the Israeli army. David Rosenberg, known for his books on "Pine Gap," claimed that the base personnel were tasked with collecting signals emanating from "command and control" centers in Gaza.
However, Israel is not interested in detailed information. Israel's target is the more than 2 million Palestinians squeezed into the narrow Gaza Strip. Peter Cronau asked the Australian Ministry of Defense about Pine Gap's role in the Israel-Gaza war and what justifications would be used to defend base personnel in case of legal accusations of "war crimes." However, he received no response.
On the "Declassified UK" site, there were reports of the US secretly shipping weapons to Israel from the military base in the Greek Cypriot sector of Cyprus. In an article titled "British Fighters in the Israeli Army: Is this Legal?" by Phil Miller on the same site, it was stated that hundreds of British citizens joined the Israeli Army. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson posed with armed, military-uniformed British citizens in Jerusalem on November 5. The article also mentioned that British citizens served in the occupied "West Bank" and the Golan Heights. However, the British government, like the US, does not recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, as reported to the UN in 2019. Likewise, the UK considers the West Bank as occupied territory and deems Jewish settlements in this region illegal.
Another issue is the distribution of "M4" assault rifles, provided by the US to Israel, to illegal settlers in the West Bank. In late October, Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir even published photos showing civilians receiving assault rifles at a political event. Josh, the director of one of the offices overseeing arms sales at the US Department of State, resigned in protest of the Biden Administration's unconditional military support to Israel. Expressing concern about the use of US weapons against civilians, Josh stated, "The weapons requested by Israel were applicable not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank. For example, there are videos on Instagram right now showing Israeli officials distributing M4 assault rifles to settlers. I find this very alarming. It should be concerning for us because settlers have a record of violence against Palestinian civilians."
Despite concerns raised by Josh, the Biden Administration continues its unconditional arms shipments to Israel. According to leaked information from the Pentagon, the Biden Administration has transferred thousands of Hellfire missiles, tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells to Israel. It should also be noted that M4 assault rifles play a significant role in a new sale to Israel by the Biden Administration.
While thousands of children and over four thousand women have been killed in Gaza, the Biden Administration and the US Congress, which usually impose various "conditions," continue to provide unconditional military support to Israel when it comes to another country, including so-called 'human rights.'
Intercepted – December 2, 2023
TWO MONTHS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD: THE FIRST PHASE OF THE GAZA WAR
As Israel resumes its bombing of Gaza, the risk of a wider regional war grows. Mouin Rabbani analyzes the military and propaganda battles between Hamas and Israel.
ON FRIDAY MORNING, Israel resumed its bombing campaign against Gaza, and the civilian death toll is once again rising. Both Hamas and Israel accused the other of violating the temporary truce. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has promised, “We will fight in the entire [Gaza] Strip.” Despite meekly worded suggestions from Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel make an effort to reduce civilian deaths, the U.S. position remains one of full-throttled support for a military campaign that has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them children and other civilians.
In this special episode of Intercepted, political analyst Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of the Arab Studies Institute’s ezine Jadaliyya, offers a provocative analysis of the current situation. In a discussion with Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain, Rabbani suggests that behind the belligerent rhetoric and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proclamations he will eradicate Hamas, Israel may already be heading for a bloody quagmire it is unlikely to transform into an accomplishment of its stated goals. “We’re now well into the second month of this war, and the most Israel has been able to achieve is to raise the Israeli flag on a hospital. It’s not exactly Iwo Jima,” Rabbani says. The “Israeli military is a very effective killing machine when it’s dropping 2,000-pound bombs from the air, but a rather mediocre fighting force when it comes to ground operations.” Rabbani describes the evolution of Hamas’s strategy and tactics over the past decades and maps out several scenarios that might emerge in the coming period. “The idea that you can wipe [Hamas] out, even if you fully succeed in conquering every last square inch of the Gaza Strip, is an illusion,” he says. “It is effectively impossible to resume this war without regional escalation.”
Jeremy Scahill: This is Intercepted.
Welcome to Intercepted. I’m Jeremy Scahill.
Murtaza Hussain: And I’m Murtaza Hussain.
JS: Maz it seems like the hardliners in Israel are getting their way. On Friday morning the temporary truce was shattered. Israel claims that Hamas fired rockets. Hamas is saying that Israel broke the truce. Regardless of how it happened, we are now back to a situation where Israel has resumed heavy bombardment. Early indications are that they’re increasing their campaign in the south of Gaza. And Israel began its military operations literally as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was taking off to depart Israel.
Antony Blinken: Well, good evening everyone and thanks for bearing with us through a long day. So this is my fourth trip to Israel since the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th.
JS: And it really seems like every time Blinken goes to the region or goes to Israel, it’s then followed by an intensification of Israeli military tactics. And you know Blinken has been trying to publicly sell this talking out of both sides of the mouth from Washington. On the one hand giving full-throttled support to Israel and on the other hand saying, well, we want to try to put some guardrails on Israel’s operations. And one of the things that Blinken said is:
Antony Blinken: But Israel has the most sophisticated — one of the most sophisticated — militaries in the world. It is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent men women and children.
JS: All we’ve seen from Israel since this started was the opposite. We’ve seen that Israel clearly wants to maximize the terror being felt by civilians in Gaza. And part of it seems aimed at saying we’re gonna force them through merciless bombing to somehow overthrow Hamas. But it shows a kind of fundamental misunderstanding of the lens of history that many Palestinians are viewing this through and also the history of Hamas itself.
MH: Well, if you look at the satellite footage and even statements from Israeli officials, it is clear that their campaign is not aimed at minimizing damage to the Palestinian people or civilian infrastructure, or civilians themselves. They’ve been carrying it out in such a way to punish the population and you’ve seen this in the death toll as well too.
So Blinken’s statement that Israel has the capability of minimizing the toll to civilians may be true per se but the implication is that they’re not taking that because they have the technology, they have the weaponry and so forth. But we would not be seeing these massive death tolls of 15-plus thousand people by some estimates — total destruction of Gaza City — were Israeli leaders taking, prioritizing and minimizing civilian harm or just focusing on Hamas per se. And we can see that they’re not just focusing on Hamas, not just by the toll on Gaza, but also by the actions of the West Bank recently, where Hamas is not in control and where Israel is still ramping up its suppression of Palestinians killings and the treatment of Palestinians in jail too, which is also deteriorated in recent weeks by many reports.
So it’s very, very clear that Israel is not behaving in the way that Blinken is portraying them as behaving or… This good cop bad cop attitude that the U.S. is taking towards Israel is really not very convincing, even on those terms. It’s clear that Israel is engaging in tactics which we condemn very thoroughly when done by Russia or Syria or other countries that we’re opposed to. But when we’re seeing them in real time by [a] U.S. ally, we’re getting at very minimum defense from the U.S. administration of Israeli actions.
JS: You know, now we’re about two months into this acute aspect of the war. Of course, this war has been going on a lot longer and started far, far earlier than October 7th, of course. But we thought it would be good and worth it to look at these two months that have shook the world, and to do so we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani. He’s a researcher, analyst, and commentator specializing in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as the contemporary Middle East. He is the co-editor of Jadaliyya and contributing editor of Middle East Report.
Mouin thank you so much for being with us here on Intercepted.
Mouin Rabbani: It’s a real pleasure to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.
JS: Let’s start with the very beginning of this acute aspect of the war. Of course, you can say this has been going on for a very, very long time, but… October 7th. First, talk about what you understand were the strategic objectives of Hamas in what they called “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”
MR: Well, I think we’re probably going to have to wait, and perhaps wait a long time, to get a definitive answer to that question. But the strategic objective, as I understand it, was to shatter the status quo, and to shatter it irrevocably.
It was a situation in which the Gaza Strip had been under blockade for 16, 17 years, the occupation was well into its sixth decade. Of course, there was also the dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948. And, in addition to that, what we had also seen was a number of escalating Israeli measures.
First of all, of particular interest to Hamas as an Islamist movement, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem, the growing settler pogroms, and dispossession and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, particularly in the Jordan Valley.
So, on the one hand, you have those developments. On the other hand, you had a situation where Israel was increasingly seeking to unilaterally resolve the core issues of the question of Palestine, without any reference to either Palestinian rights or Palestinian interests, or even negotiations with those Palestinians who were most amenable to the Israeli agenda; here, I’m referring to the Palestinian leadership, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
And the reason it was able to do this is because Israel had, on the one hand, the active support of the Americans. And, secondarily, the passive acquiescence of the Europeans, a passive acquiescence that has turned increasingly into active support as well. And I think the reason that Hamas decided it needed to do something, for lack of a better term, genuinely spectacular on October 7th, is because they had attempted to shatter the status quo on two separate occasions, at least.
The first was the Great March of Return in 2018, when very large numbers of Palestinians went to the boundary between the Gaza Strip and Israel to demonstrate, on the anniversary of Nakba Day. And Israeli snipers shot and killed numerous Palestinians, wounded many more, medics were killed, and so on. And the world shrugged and, the following day, things returned back to what they were.
More recently, in 2021, represented the first time that an Israeli-Palestinian armed confrontation took place at the initiative of Hamas, rather than Israel. And, just as importantly, was initiated by Hamas for reasons that had nothing to do with conditions in the Gaza Strip. It was a response to growing Israeli incursions, and repression, and other measures in East Jerusalem; you may remember the attempted settlement expansion in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. And then specifically, also the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And even then, that lasted for a few weeks, that was a so-called “Unity Intifada,” where you had Palestinians rising up in the West Bank within Israel, and then this confrontation between Palestinians and Israel in the Gaza Strip. A ceasefire was eventually established and, once again, things went back to their usual pattern.
I think, when you look at the scale of what we saw on October 7th, it can’t be seen as a response to the policies of the current far-right government in Israel: Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich, and so on. Sure, that was a factor, but the planning for an operation of this size, scale, and scope must have started before — perhaps even well before — this government took office.
And so, I know there is a tendency to blame anything and everything on Netanyahu — it’s kind of a Netanyahu derangement syndrome, if you will — but the current government is more of a change in scale and intensity, rather than a change in policy. And the issues that I was discussing previously were more or less policies of previous Israeli governments, rather than the current one. In addition, of course, you had the prisoner file, which is of central importance, not only to Palestinians generally and to Hamas, particularly, but also to Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and seen as an architect of the October 7th attacks, personally.
So, if you take all of these issues together, my sense is that if you were to summarize Hamas’ strategic objective in one phrase, it would be to irrevocably shatter the status quo. Did they have very clear ideas of what they wanted beyond that? At the tactical level, yes. It’s quite clear that the reason they took so many Israeli soldiers captive and civilians hostage is because they wanted a comprehensive prisoner exchange, including people who they were unable to get released in the 2011 agreement, that led to the freedom for about a thousand Palestinian prisoners. They wanted changes with regard to the blockade, and so on.
But did they have a clear — and what they consider achievable — political objective? I haven’t really seen the evidence for that. My sense is they did not think that far ahead.
One last point is that I think we also need to recall that, on October 7th, the Israeli military and intelligence services not only failed but, at the first sign of contact, they collapsed like a house of cards. So, we have to consider it quite likely that the scale of the October 7th attacks far exceeded Hamas’s initial planning for that event, and that they ended up basically operating in a geographical area that’s larger than the Gaza Strip itself. I don’t know to what extent Hamas planned for that. I suspect they didn’t think they would be able to, and I suspect that many of these expanded operations were decided, and implemented, and conducted in the heat of the moment, simply because the Israeli defensive measures evaporated into thin air.
MH: Mouin, in the wake of October 7th, the Israeli government has said that its goal is to eradicate Hamas; in various terms, it said that. And it’s reiterated that goal now, over a month into the operation. Despite that, Hamas, by all accounts, still seems to have considerable command and control inside Gaza. The recent prisoner exchange suggests as well that they’re still very well entrenched, and Israel is still very, very far from achieving those stated military objectives.
From your sense, how realistic is this goal of destroying Hamas, or eradicating Hamas, as the Israeli government has put it. Is it an actually achievable objective for Israel? And, if so, what would it take to accomplish that?
Read More
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/02/intercepted-gaza-war-israel-hamas/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
Daily Sabah – December 3, 2023
Türkiye's defense exports log fresh record even before year-end
Türkiye's defense and aviation industry has outpaced its earlier annual export record. It is now left with a month to build on what is about to go into history as a new milestone.
Shipments rose by more than a third from January through November to $4.8 billion (TL 138.72 billion), according to Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) data.
The capabilities of Türkiye's vehicles, spearheaded by its combat drones, triggered unprecedented demand that saw its defense exports peak at more than $4.4 billion in 2022.
The 12-month rolling sales have reached $5.5 billion, according to the TIM data, bringing the figure closer to the $6 billion that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said they hope to achieve this year.
The figure is aimed to be lifted above $10 billion in the near future, the officials have said.
"With our defense industry initiatives, our exports are increasing exponentially. Our goal this year is to surpass $6 billion," Erdoğan said in late September, as he cited exponential growth from just $248 million more than two decades ago.
The ground covered since 2002 has reached a level where Türkiye exports more than 230 defense products to about 170 countries.
Its aviation industry is one of the key builders of aircraft structures and equipment, and a provider of maintenance-repair services for the world's leading platform manufacturers.
The profound transformation in Trkiye's defense industry has been spurred by a score of Western embargoes.
Over the last 20 years, the transformation has aimed at reducing external dependency on Western arms through innovative engineering initiatives and domestically developed technologies.
The drive prompted the development of a range of homegrown air, land and marine platforms, eventually helping lower Türkiye's foreign dependency on defense from around 80% in the early 2000s to some 20% today.
|
Published since July 2008 |
Your donation
is tax deductable.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
