Second Nakba, Bibi's 9/11: The start of monumental destruction of the Middle East?

Peter Koenig | Global Research

On October 7, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared the offensive as Israel's 9/11. He is right in more ways than one. The US 9/11 was a horrendous and deadly false flag, and so is the Israeli one, or the so-called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, assault by Hamas.

Both 9/11's are meant to "justify" endless and crushing retributions. In the US, an endless and worldwide war on "terror" which means the entire world, as Washington sees fit, according to its "rules-based order." Misbehaving nations are simply sanctioned and crushed, forced to their knees.

Israeli intel, as well as that of Egypt, the UK, the US, Brussels - EU - knew about the impending attack, planned by Israel in coordination with Hamas. A Jewish charity leader says Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to stand down for 7 hours during the Hamas invasion.

For Israel, it justifies a stepped-up war on Palestine, the end of Gaza, eventually forcing 2.3 million Gazans to flee through Rafah into the Sinai Peninsula in northeast Egypt.

Despite the official rejection of Israel to establish a corridor for Gazan refugees - an agreement with Israel and Washington to starve to death as many Palestinians as possible - Egypt eventually may allow to open the Rafah border for "humanitarian reasons." It is all part of the deal. 

[...]

This was planned for years.
Hamas was set up and funded by Israel and the US/UK secret services.

Hamas must do the bidding of its masters - namely periodically shooting back at aggressive Israeli attacks at Palestine settlements, mostly in the Gaza strip, and eventually launching a massive attack on Israel (on 7 October), thus, provoking an even more gigantic and deadly act of retribution - one that may not end until Palestine is erased from the map.

And then onwards - for the creation of Greater Israel, in the process absorbing one third to half of the current Middle East.

For broader understanding of the Israel-Palestine war, see also this.

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Top IDF lawyer quits over video leak of detainee sexual abuse

Comment: Even among their own, their pathology is beginning fracture the collective...

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RT

The footage reportedly shows Israeli soldiers at a military base assaulting a Palestinian prisoner.

The Israel Defense Force's (IDF) top military lawyer has quit after admitting she approved the leak of a video allegedly showing Israeli soldiers abusing a Palestinian prisoner at a military base.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi announced her resignation on Friday, saying she had authorized the release of surveillance footage from Sde Teiman near the Gaza border, which also serves as a detention site. The video, filmed in early July 2024, showed soldiers taking aside a detainee lying face down, then surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility as they allegedly carried out the abuse. The man was later taken for treatment for severe injuries. The leaked clip was aired by Israel's Channel 12 news that August.

In her resignation letter published by The Times of Israel on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi said she approved the release "in an attempt to counter the false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities."

She wrote that while those detained at Sde Teiman "are terrorists and terror operatives of the worst kind," that does not diminish the duty to investigate when there is "reasonable suspicion of violence against a detainee."

Commenting on her resignation, Defense Minister Israel Katz said, "Anyone who spreads blood libels against IDF soldiers is not worthy of wearing the IDF uniform."

Following the Sde Teiman incident, five reservists were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to a detainee, which they have denied. The case sparked outrage among coalition politicians and right-wing activists. Dozens of protesters stormed the military base in an attempt to block the arrests.

The facility, partially converted into a detention camp for Palestinians suspected of militant activity, has faced allegations of widespread torture and abuse. Over 1,000 detainees from Gaza have reportedly passed through the base, including men accused of taking part in Hamas' October 7 attack, which left some 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities, Israeli military action has killed over 68,000 Palestinians since.

The resignation adds to growing scrutiny of Israel's conduct in Gaza, as both sides say they remain committed to a US-brokered truce.  

See also: Israel's Undeniable War Crimes in Gaza

IDF's top lawyer quits; says she approved leak of detainee abuse video

Gaza Cease-fire Agreement Furthers Ongoing Age of Imperialism

Jeremy Kazmurov | Covert Action Magazine 

In October 9, Israel and Hamas announced the adoption of a cease-fire agreement involving the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

Israel, in exchange, agreed to allow for the entry of humanitarian aid, to release Palestinian prisoners, and to withdraw its forces to a so-called “yellow line” from which they will still control all land crossings into Gaza.

The U.S. additionally agreed to send 200 more troops to Israel to monitor and oversee the agreement.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman gushed that President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for helping to broker the agreement. However, the World Socialist Web Site reported that the October 9 “peace” deal inscribes a return to the open colonial domination of the Middle East that prevailed in the 19^th century.

Gaza is now to be governed by a “Board of Peace” headed and chaired by Donald Trump and which will include former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) noted that the “peace agreement” was “steeped in colonial rhetoric” and that its “inclusion of an international ‘Board of Peace’…ensures the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the decision-making of Palestinian futures.”

A hidden U.S.-Israeli agenda has long been to control oil and gas fields off the Gaza coast that are estimated to be worth more than $500 billion.

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The US-Israel plan for Gaza: a paradise for the ruling class and its business interests

Donde Vamos?

Since 7 October 2023, we have been watching, virtually powerless, as genocide unfolds live before our eyes, simply because our leaders are compromised by the Zionist lobby. Today, both Trump and Israel have a plan for Gaza, and once again we find the good old lobby behind Trump's ‘peace plan,’ rejected on Friday, 3 October by Hamas, which consisted of handing over the keys to Gaza to a delegation of globalists.  But beyond territorial conquest, this plan for Gaza is a globalist, authoritarian utopia, which probably foreshadows what our societies will be like tomorrow if we let this ruling class have its way.

In February 2025, Trump spoke of his Riviera project in Gaza, where nearly 2 million people were crammed together before the Zionists began their process of total destruction. The plan, developed with his Israeli friends and Tony Blair, called for the deportation of the remaining population to create a luxury tourism and high-tech development site, officially under US supervision for 10 years.


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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Israel Flipped Out And Killed 45 Palestinians After Running Over Their Own Bomb

Caitlin Johnston | Caitlin's Newsletter

In today’s news, Israel’s stupid fucking genocidal rapists ran over an unexploded ordnance from their own evil carpet bombing campaign, blamed Hamas for the explosion, started bombing the fuck out of Gaza again, killed scores of civilians, said they were once again cutting off aid to the enclave, and then quietly backed down on urging from Washington.

Rather than report that Israel violated the ceasefire agreement as blatantly as any agreement could possibly be violated, the western press have been referring to this as a “test” of the ceasefire. Killing Palestinians is so normalized and accepted as a baseline expectation in the western press that CNN called it the “first major test” of the ceasefire after Israel killed people in Gaza every single day since the ceasefire agreement was signed.

I hope the “WHY AREN’T YOU CELEBRATING?” crowd have gotten their answer by now. We weren’t celebrating because we know more than you. We’ve actually been paying attention, so we know Israel is going to seek out every excuse to kill Palestinians and torch this fake “ceasefire”.

The Israeli government keeps issuing statements making it explicitly clear that Israel will not consider the “war” over until Hamas is fully disarmed and Gaza is fully demilitarized, terms that the Palestinian resistance has explicitly refused. These mutually contradictory positions place Gaza on a collision course toward full-scale reignition of the genocide.

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Scores of Palestinians dead, regular arrests: Israel's ceasefire violations in Gaza so far

Mera Aladam | Middle East Eye

Since the truce came into effect on 11 October, Israeli forces have committed over 80 violations of the agreement 

As Israeli continues its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, the viability of the US-brokered ceasefire is coming into question.

On Sunday, Israel unleashed a deadly wave of bombings on targets in the besieged territory after it alleged that Hamas violated the terms of the truce deal.

The Israeli military said the attacks were in response to an alleged "attack" by Palestinians on its troops in southern Rafah, which involved rocket-propelled grenade and sniper fire.

However, the armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, denied any knowledge of the event, or connections to it, and affirmed it remains committed to the ceasefire. 

Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect on 11 October, Israeli forces have committed over 80 violations of its terms.  

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The Not-so-Secret History of Netanyahu's Support For Hamas

Ghousoon Bisharat | +972 Magazine

From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict. Even after Oct. 7, argues historian Adam Raz, he's still advancing the same strategy. 

When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to write "The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel's Moral Degradation," he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu's involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict.

Raz's book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a controversial policy whereby Netanyahu's governments for years routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told +972 that this is "just a sliver of the bigger picture," which is rooted in Netanyahu's broader opposition to a just resolution to the conflict. "People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu's strategy," he said.

According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu's priority is not maintaining Israel's security but rather preventing any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. Keeping the cash flowing to Hamas served this objective by ensuring the Palestinian national movement remained splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land. Even after the devastating events of October 7, Raz warns that Netanyahu's playbook remains unchanged.

This book isn't a history lesson about the conflict, Raz emphasizes, but rather a damning exploration of a political alliance that continues to degrade Israel's moral fabric. "I didn't write this book, I yelled it on the pages," he said.

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Israeli Soldiers Torched Food, Homes, and a Critical Sewage Treatment Plant in the Wake of Ceasefire Announcement

Younis Tirawi and Yaniv Cogan | Drop Site News

In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's announcement on Thursday that both Hamas and Israel had signed off on an agreement to stop the fighting, the Israeli military launched an arson spree, setting fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza City.

The destruction of Palestinian structures following the departure of soldiers who had used them as temporary bases has been a hallmark of Israel's approach to Gaza for two years. In July, Israeli reporter Yuval Abraham collected testimonies from soldiers describing a myriad of arson methods. "Every Arab house we entered had olive oil [...] We poured the oil on the sofas, on anything flammable in the apartment, and then we ignited [it] or threw in a smoke grenade. This was a common practice," one of them described.

The agreement came after months of a concerted effort to render Gaza uninhabitable by destroying residences and civilian infrastructure, culminating in the ground invasion of Gaza City and the leveling of several high rises in Gaza City. In September, Israeli government minister Gila Gamliel told Channel 7 News, "We have already completely annihilated 75% of the entire [Gaza] Strip. There remains 25%, which, as you know, it too...we are now taking over [the city of] Gaza — there will be nothing left there that would really [have] the potential to be habitable."

The scope of the arson perpetrated in Gaza City on the night of October 9th and early morning of October 10 — Thursday night into Friday, just after the ceasefire was agreed to but before Israel's cabinet approved it — was broader than at any other time Drop Site has tracked during the assault on the strip. Its perpetrators were not confined to a single unit, nor was the burning confined to a specific neighborhood. Drop Site News identified members of the Israeli army originating from several different brigades, including the Golani, Givati, Nahal Brigades, and the newly formed ultra-orthodox Hashmonaim Brigade who posted dozens of photos and videos of buildings engulfed in flames during their withdrawal from Gaza City to the "yellow line" defined in the Trump agreement, still deep within Gaza's territory.

On Sunday, an Israeli soldier from the Kfir Brigade posted a photo showing himself standing in front of a set of burning wooden pallets. "On Friday, just before departure. Burning food so that it won't reach the Gazans, may their names be erased," the caption reads. The post also includes a song called, "L'Chaim!" (Cheers!), whose music video uses footage from Gaza. 

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“October 7 was a false flag,” Testified an Israeli Soldier Under Oath

Adame Media 

An Israeli soldier testifies UNDER OATH that October 7th was a FALSE FLAG, and that he was ordered to STAND DOWN from 5:20am to 9am the day of the attack.

You could face up to five years in prison for sharing this video in Israel.

Two Years Since

Israel Shamir | Unz Review

Two years passed since this memorable morning raid, when the Hamas fighters realised the wildest fantasy of our lifetime, and escaped on the eagle wings from the prison of Gaza. They flew over the barbed wire and mine fields where their cruel prison guards kept them jailed for fifteen long years, and attacked the jailers. This was the bravest, most noble deed of the Hamas warriors. Let us do the fast forward of Gaza fate previous to this fateful day.

Palestine’s fate is the most bitter, in violation of all norms. It is ruled by Israel, which does not allow its inhabitants to live peacefully, to enter or leave, use the airport, while its own airport and seaport had been destroyed. Palestinians are killed for no reason — there is always a justification and explanation for the killing. If the explanation collapses, there is an oops, but never restitution, not to mention justice. Palestine is an anomaly, the only colony in our time where the local population is under complete colonial oppression. Attempts to decolonise Palestine have failed, and people around the world who seek justice cannot accept this situation.

Gaza is the most unfortunate part of Palestine. It’s a rather small Bantustan, surrounded by Israeli territory and Israel’s dependency, Egypt. The city, located on the Mediterranean coast, is not allowed to have its own port, even though this very port existed here 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. Ptolemy and Strabo wrote about it. It was one of the main ports of the Eastern Mediterranean, known throughout the ancient world. Incense from the south of the Arabian Peninsula was brought here — frankincense and myrrh, popular in ancient times, as well as other aromatic oils and spices. So, when life was bustling here, trade flourished.

It was the site of a great battle, from March to November 1917 the Brits fought for Gaza, and with great difficulty took it. In 1948, the Jews couldn’t take it, and not for the lack of trying, but they pushed into Gaza thousands of Palestinian dwellers of villages and towns south of Jaffa.

Incidentally, this is why, when Yasser Arafat agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the ‘peaceful coexistence’ of the two peoples (the so-called Oslo Accords, signed in 1993), the Israelis assured that Gaza would become the main metropolis of Palestine. Unfortunately, this did not happen. It is very difficult to negotiate with the Israelis. If they do not like an agreement, it is a ‘bad deal’ and they are not obliged to comply with it. This applies not only to politics, but also to business, and indeed to anything else. And they simply threw the Oslo Accords out the window. 

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Hamas just accepted Trump’s ‘peace’ plan. Here’s what it didn’t accept.

Qassam Muaddi | Mondoweiss

The response of Hamas to U.S. President Donald Trump's "peace" plan to end the war in Gaza came in late on Friday. It sparked immediate and conflicting reactions.

Five days after the U.S. president first announced his plan, the Palestinian movement gave its answer in a statement announcing that Hamas announced its "approval for the release of all hostages — living and dead - according to the exchange formula included in President Trump's proposal." Hamas added that it was ready to enter talks "to discuss the details."

 In a move practically unheard of by a U.S. president, Trump shared Hamas's statement on his account on Truth Social:

"Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting peace. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the hostages out safely and quickly!"

Minutes later, Trump announced Hamas's acceptance of his plan in a live address at the White House, considering the event "a big day, unprecedented in many ways." Trump added that he "looks forward to having all [Israeli] hostages come back to their parents," stressing that "we have to put the final word in concrete." The U.S. President thanked Arab and Muslim states for "helping me put this together," promising that "everybody will be treated fairly."

Hamas's response to Trump's plan came a day after the Israeli army sealed off Gaza City. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a "final warning" to the estimated 500,000 Palestinians still in the city, announcing that those who decide to remain will be considered "terrorists or supporters of terror."

Netanyahu 'surprised' amid international approval

Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey also accepted Hamas's response, while French President Emmanuel Macron said that the "release of all hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza are within reach," and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Hamas's response was "a significant step forwards." 

Trump's near-immediate positive response to the Hamas statement was reportedly met with "surprise" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an unnamed Israeli official who spoke to Israel's Channel 12. Netanyahu had held a deliberation on the Hamas response to Trump's plan before the U.S. President published his Truth Social statement. According to Channel 12, the Israeli Prime Minister considered the Hamas response a rejection of Trump's framework. 

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Qatar, 9/11 and the increasingly inevitable Israeli heel turn

Comment: Interesting new angle by Knightly. 

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Off-Guardian Org | Kit Knightly

 

Yesterday, Israel conducted strikes on the Qatari capital city of Doha, allegedly targeting (and supposedly killing) key members of the Hamas leadership.

An unprovoked attack in direct violation of another nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Textbook breaking of international law.

This is not unusual. Israel's contempt for international law is nothing new and is far from under-reported.

The wrinkle is the response from world leaders, which has been somewhat chillier than you'd expect.

The attacks were roundly criticised by puppets the world over - Canada's Mark Carney, Britain's Keir Starmer, Australia's Albanese, France's Macron and more.

In her State of the Union address, EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen warned the EU should "consider our bilateral support" for Israel.

Even Donald Trump's White House distanced themselves from the plan, which is as close to a full repudiation as you'll get from that quarter.

Earlier in the week, the Spanish government announced they were closing their airspace and naval ports to any planes or boats carrying weapons to Israel.

Expressing anti-Israel sentiment is becoming more and more common on a political stage where support for Palestine was once purely the domain of Cuba, Venezuela and other designated "enemies" of The West.

Israel is responding by doubling down, unleashing further strikes - this time on Yemen - earlier today.  

 

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Israel’s ‘new, violent Zionism’ as a harbinger of Imperial geo-politics of submission and obedience

Strategic Culture Foundation | Alistair Crooke

For a Leviathan to function, it must remain rational and powerful, Alastair Crooke writes. 

Israel’s strategy from past decades continues to rest on the hope of achieving some literal Chimeric transformative ‘de-radicalisation’ of both Palestinians and of the Region, writ large – a de-radicalisation that will make ‘Israel safe’. This has been the ‘holy grail’ objective for Zionists since Israel was first founded. The code word for this chimaera today is the ‘Abraham Accords’.

Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Minister, former Israeli Ambassador to Washington and key Trump ‘whisperer’ – writes Anna Barsky in Ma’ariv (Hebrew) on 24 August – “sees reality with cold political eyes. He is convinced that a real agreement [on Gaza] will never be concluded with Hamas, but [only] with the United States. What is needed, Dermer says, is the Americans’ adoption of Israel’s principles: the same five points that the Cabinet approved: disarmament of Hamas, return of all hostages, complete demilitarization of Gaza, Israeli security control in the Strip – and an alternative civilian government that is not Hamas and not the Palestinian Authority”.

From the perspective of Dermer, a partial hostage release deal – which Hamas has accepted – would be a political disaster. By contrast, were Washington to endorse the Dermer outcome – as an ‘American plan’ – Barsky infers Dermer suggesting: “we would have a situation in which everyone benefits”. Moreover, in Dermer’s logic, “the mere opening of a partial deal gives Hamas a window of two to three months, during which it can strengthen itself and even try to obtain a different ‘final scenario’ from that of the Americans – one that suits [Hamas] better”. “This, according to Dermer, is the truly dangerous scenario”, writes Barsky.

Dermer has for years insisted that Israel can have no peace without the prior ‘transformative de-radicalisation’ of all Palestinians. “If we do it right”, Ron Dermer says, “it will make Israel stronger – and the U.S. too!”

Some years earlier, when Dermer was asked what he saw to be the solution to the Palestinian conflict. He replied that both the West Bank and Gaza must be totally dis-armed. Yet, more important than disarmament however, was the absolute necessity that all Palestinians must be mutationally “de-radicalised”.

When asked to expand, Dermer pointed approvingly to the outcome of WW2: The Germans were defeated, but more significantly, the Japanese had been fully ‘de-radicalised’ and rendered docile by the war’s end:

“Japan had U.S. forces for 75 years. Germany — U.S. forces for 75 years. And if anyone thinks that was by agreement at the beginning they’re kidding themselves. It was imposed, then they understood it was good for them. And over time there was a mutual interest in keeping it”.

Trump is aware of Dermer’s thesis, but seemingly it is Netanyahu who instinctively dithers, so Barsky writes:

“A partial deal [with Hamas] will almost certainly lead to the resignation of Smotrich and Ben Gvir [from the government]… The government will fall apart … A partial deal means the end of the right-right government … Netanyahu knows this well, which is why his hesitation is so difficult. And yet, there is a limit to how long one can hold the rope at both ends”.

Trump seemingly accepts the ‘Dermer Thesis’: “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad”, Trump said of Hamas before leaving for his recent weekend trip to Scotland. “It got to a point where you’re [i.e. Israel] gonna have to finish the job”.

But Dermer’s notion about having the consciousness of adversaries seared by defeat was never just about Hamas alone. It extended to all Palestinians and the region as a whole – and, of course to Iran in particular.

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How western media helped turn Israel’s genocide into ‘fake news’

Middle East Eye| Jonathan Cook

Israel’s justification for the mass slaughter of Gaza’s people and their starvation - now officially confirmed as a famine engineered by Israel - was built on a parade of easily discredited lies from the start: of beheaded infants, of babies in ovens, of mass rape. 

It should surprise no one that Israel continued advancing similarly outrageous lies as it set about - as all genocidal regimes must do - dismantling the most basic infrastructure of survival for Gaza’s population. 

It cut off humanitarian aid delivered by the United Nations agency Unrwa, and destroyed the enclave’s hospitals, while killing, jailing and torturing its medical personnel. 

Israel claimed it had documents proving the UN was a front for Hamas - documents it never produced. Meanwhile, all 36 of Gaza’s hospitals have been attacked - attacks whose implicit rationale was that they were built atop Hamas “command and control centres”, though those centres have never been found.

Expanding this narrative, Israel rounded up and jailed the enclave’s leading doctors, who had been working round the clock to treat the endless tide of maimed men, women and children, as supposed “Hamas operatives” in disguise. 

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The Media Loves “The Experts,” Until it’s Time to Count Gaza’s Dead

Current Affairs | Lex Syd

Public debate around Gaza fixates on a death toll that is probably half the size of the real number. 

ar from being inflated by sneaky Hamas propagandists, the commonly cited death toll of the war in Gaza is an extreme undercount. 

Virtually every news article about the Israel-Hamas war cites the death toll provided by the strip’s Ministry of Health. Currently at 60,900 (and climbing by the day), the MOH toll is widely accepted as an accurate minimum. Still, journalists and political figures aligned with Israel often call it into question in a range of ways, from attaching the label “Hamas-controlled” to the Ministry itself to outright denying its accuracy. In 2023, even former President Joe Biden invoked this idea, saying that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

Because the Ministry’s death toll has attracted this undeserved controversy, the standard reporting line is to explain why the MOH figures are considered reliable. For example, the Washington Post recently published a detailed accounting of the names, and in some cases the photos, of roughly 18,500 children who are counted among the dead overall.

But in defending and insisting on the MOH figures, media outlets have defended the bare minimum, and the result is a public debate that revolves around an understated count. Hence why New York Times columnist Bret Stephens can write an opinion piece arguing that 60,000 dead is tragic, but small relative to what Israel could do. Those terms of debate are accepted even by his harshest critics.

But the figure everyone knows is not an undercount of a few thousand or even ten thousand. The real toll could well be twice as high. That is according to a growing body of research that is conspicuously absent in news coverage of Gaza—despite the eagerness of newsrooms to emphasize expert opinion on other divisive topics, like COVID-19 policy or climate change.

The standard figure largely counts only those whose bodies reached health workers and those who were killed violently. But in reality, the institutions that count the dead are heavily degraded, thousands remain under rubble, and deaths due to malnutrition or easily preventable diseases are rarely included in MOH totals, if at all.

How Many Gazans Have Died According to Experts?

A reasonable, conservative estimate of the death toll in Gaza is about 100,000. And the figure may well tally to 200,000, if not now, then by the war’s end. 

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IDF Mysterious ‘Legitimization Cell’: Unveiling Israel’s Controversial Tactics Against Journalists

Activist Post  

As reported in a post on X by Yuval Abraham, a journalist and filmmaker from Jerusalem who writes for +972 Magazine, in the aftermath of the Oct 7 attack, a faction called the “Legitimisation Cell” was established within AMAN, the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, The role of the Agents working within this shadowy faction is to gather evidence to validate the military’s actions in Gaza, which includes unsuccessful Hamas missile launches, the use of human shields, and the exploitation of civilians. According to Yuval, one of the primary goals of the ‘Legitimisation Cell’ is to pinpoint Gazan journalists who could be portrayed in the media as Hamas operatives in disguise. The ‘Cell’ painstakingly examined the profiles of journalists and carried out extensive searches, Yuval explains. Although this cell invested countless hours in this endeavour, they ultimately found nothing, noted Yuval.

From his perspective, the Jerusalem-based journalist argues that this approach is intended to provide media ‘legitimisation’ for the ongoing killings of journalists, which suggests that Israel’s strategy of sowing doubt is a way to justify atrocities. In other words, labelling a journalist as a ‘Hamas’ operative in disguise effectively distracts from the murder of countless other journalists,” Yuval concludes.

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Israeli miscalculations and hubris led to the rise of Hamas

Andrew Higgins
The Wall Street Journal
via sott.net

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.  

Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a "determined and successful military operation." More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.

Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire.

Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm "requires more than a long cease-fire" and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state "living side by side in peace and security."

A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals — including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists — reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.

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Gaza air strikes: Israel launches heaviest barrage since 2014 war amid militant rocket attacks

Comment: Poor little Israel... so victimised....

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The Independent

Israel has launched the largest wave of air strikes on Gaza since the 2014 war, as militants in the enclave fired volleys of rockets at towns adjacent to the border.

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed and at least three Israeli civilians were injured in the intense cross-border exchange that first erupted on Friday night.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli army spokesman, said the decision to bomb Gaza was taken after “terror along the security fence, arson terror and rockets”. The Israeli army said it had struck more than 40 targets in Gaza, the largest wave of daytime strikes since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. 

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, claimed that its fighters had “responded appropriately by targeting Israeli…military targets” after a “ruthless” attack. More than 90 rockets and mortars were fired from the enclave at southern Israeli towns. 

In Gaza, plumes of smoke rose above several cities as strikes tore through buildings including a high-rise in Al-Shati refugee camp in the north. Israel said the building was covering a militant tunnel and an underground warfare training facility. 

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Gazan Gandhis: Gaza bleeds alone as ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ go mute

Ramzy Baroud
Intrepid Report

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.

Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing—nearly 45 dead and over 5,500 wounded—the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women and men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.

Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on terrorists. He believes that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” While the Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack of meaningful action, or outright international silence to the atrocities taking place at the border.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel’s killings in a recent statement, but also distorted facts in her attempt at ‘even-handed language,’ to the delight of Israeli media.

“Violence against civilians—in a situation such as the one prevailing in Gaza—could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court . . . as could the use of civilian presence for the purpose of shielding military activities,” she said.

Encouraged by Bensouda’s statement, Israel is exploiting the opportunity to deflect from its own crimes. On April 25, an Israeli law group, Shurat Hadin, sought to indict three Hamas leaders at the ICC, accusing Hamas of using children as human shields at the border protests.

It is tragic that many still find it difficult to grasp the notion that the Palestinian people are capable of mobilizing, resisting and making decisions independent from Palestinian factions.

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The Trump Effect: 2 Palestinians killed, 700+ injured in clashes with Israeli forces - IDF launches airstrikes in response to failed "rocket" attack

Sott.net

It has been two days since Trump's Jerusalem decision. Immediately after the announcement, Palestinians took to the streets to protest. Protests are ongoing in Afghanistan, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Egypt. The decision was bound to result in violence. U.S. troops were put on "notice to move" alert in Afghanistan in anticipation of violence breaking out. The Iraqi PMU said U.S. troops themselves were at risk of attacks. But as usual, Palestinians were the first to suffer the effects.

Earlier today, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that 104 Palestinian protesters had been wounded in clashes with Israeli occupation forces: 4 with regular bullets, 18 with rubber bullets, 70+ with tear gas. A producer for RT, Amzhad Shahin, was taken to the hospital after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli military. Later, that number was raised to 245 injured, 11 from live fire. Thirty-year-old Mohammad al-Masri was killed east of Khan Younis. A second death was initially reported, but hasn't yet been confirmed. The Israelis confirmed they shot two people, accusing them of being the "main instigators" of "violent riots" (i.e., rock-throwing).  

[...]

The largely mythical Iron Dome allegedly took down a rocket fired from Gaza. Another landed in Sderot, damaging a parked car. Israel retaliated by launching missiles from their fighter jets at a "Hamas training compound" and an "ammo warehouse". Among the 25 injured as a result of the "precision" strikes were 6 children. In IDF-speak, "training compounds" and "ammo warehouses" are usually known by their more common names: houses, schools, hospitals, etc. 

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