English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 04/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For
today
Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord,
lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know
you.”Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor
the hour
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 25/01-13: “‘Then the
kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and
went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.
When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise
took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of
them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here
is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up
and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your
oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise replied, “No! there will not
be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some
for yourselves.” And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and
those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door
was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open
to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you. ”Keep awake
therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Titles For The
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on December 03-04/2023
Israel,
Hezbollah trade fire across Israel-Lebanon border for third day
Hezbollah missile from Lebanon wounds 12 in northern Israel
Al-Rahi: Lebanese can’t be forced to bear burdens of others' war
Netanyahu: Lebanon will be destroyed if Hezbollah launches war
11 Israelis wounded as Hezbollah and Israel trade fire anew
Mikati meets TotalEnergies CEO: The possibility of resuming drilling as the
matter is subject to report
Hezbollah: We targeted a military vehicle at the Beit Hillel base, which
resulted in fatalities and injuries
The Israeli bombing targets the vicinity of two Lebanese Army centers
MP Najat Saliba on LBCI: Climate change affects human health, and this is what
we witnessed in Lebanon
Abiad to LBCI: We are working on preparing health institutions to confront
climate change
Qatar's Prime Minister: Doha is committed to ceasefire efforts
Israel, Threatened by Hezbollah, Seeks Solution for Empty North
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on December 03-04/2023
Iran says Israeli strike in Syria killed 2 Revolutionary Guard members
IDF shells targets in Syria after rocket fire
Suspected U.S. strike in Iraq kills 5 militia members, sources say
Israel expands Gaza ground offensive, says efforts in south will be 'no less
strength' than in north
Israeli security chief in recording vows to hunt down Hamas abroad -Kan TV
Israel-Gaza war: Israeli forces pushing into south Gaza
Kirby says intelligence sources did not have access to Hamas’ attack plan after
NYT report
Wounded and dead overwhelm southern Gaza hospital on third day of renewed war
Israel says it uncovered 800 shafts to Hamas tunnels below Gazaalestinian
Islamist group Hamas in northern Gaza
US and Israeli officials react to blockbuster report that Israel knew Hamas was
planning attack
Houthis claim responsibility for the attack on two ships in Red Sea
COP28: The link between climate change and health
More than 15,500 Palestinians killed from Israeli bombing in Gaza: Health
Ministry
Buffer zone: Israel's proposed plan for Gaza's future borders sparks rejections
German tourist killed and two wounded in Paris knife attack
US VP focuses on shaping post-war Gaza in diplomatic blitz in UAE with Arab
leaders
US defense chief says Israel must shield civilians to win in Gaza
Israel widens evacuation orders as it shifts its offensive to southern Gaza amid
heavy bombardments
British military reports an explosion off the coast of Yemen in the key Bab el-Mandeb
Strait
Why Israel’s peace activists are re-evaluating their position on the war
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published
on December 03-04/2023
Nazis, Muslims and the Jews ...Did Nazis carry out the horrific Oct 7th
massacre?/Mordechai Nisan /Front Page/December 03/2023
Why Belgium, Norway, Spain and Everyone Should Refrain from Recognizing a
'Palestinian State' Just Now/Drieu Godefridi/ Gatestone Institute./December 3,
2023
Gaza and the Double Standards/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 03/2023
Israel faces new front in Iran’s drone war/Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/December
03/2023
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published on December 03-04/2023
Israel,
Hezbollah trade fire across Israel-Lebanon border for third day
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters)/December 3, 2023
Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants traded fire across the Israel-Lebanon
border on Sunday for the third consecutive day and Israel said several if its
soldiers were hurt, following the collapse of a truce between it and Hamas
militants in Gaza.The Israeli military said its soldiers were "lightly injured"
when an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit a vehicle in the Beit Hillel
area of northern Israel. Israeli forces fired artillery in return, the
military's statement read. Iran-backed Hezbollah said it had targeted a number
of Israeli positions with what it called "appropriate weapons". Following the
eruption of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah mounted near-daily rocket
attacks on Israeli positions at the frontier while Israel launched air and
artillery strikes in south Lebanon. But the border was largely calm during a
week-long truce in Gaza that collapsed on Friday. It has been the worst fighting
since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally. Just over 100
people in Lebanon have been reported killed during the hostilities, 83 of them
Hezbollah fighters. Tens of thousands of people have fled both sides of the
border.
Hezbollah missile from
Lebanon wounds 12 in northern Israel
JNS/December 3, 2023 /
Ziv Medical Center in Safed admitted 12 people injured by an anti-tank missile
attack from Lebanon on Sunday. One woman and 11 men between the ages of 20 and
65 were lightly wounded from shrapnel and the missile’s blast, the hospital
said. Several soldiers were lightly injured by fragments and a vehicle was
damaged in the attack, the Israel Defense Forces said earlier.It was unclear
whether the other hospitalized victims were soldiers or civilians. Hezbollah
claimed responsibility for the attack on the army vehicle that was targeted in
the area of Moshav Beit Hillel in the Eastern Galilee.In addition, the IDF
detected several launches in the Mount Dov area, some of which struck inside
Lebanese territory. IDF artillery targeted the sources of the fire. The IDF
updated in the late afternoon that fighter jets attacked Hezbollah targets in
Lebanon and that several launches were detected from Lebanon toward Israeli
territory, with IDF artillery attacking the sources of the fire. The army
shelled several targets in Southern Lebanon earlier on Sunday in response to
anti-tank missile fire. The missile hit an open area near Kibbutz Yiftah, also
in the Eastern Galilee, causing no injuries, the military said. Later on Sunday,
air-raid sirens were activated in Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights. The IDF
subsequently announced a “projectile” was launched into Israeli territory from
Syria, landing in an open area. IDF forces attacked the source of the fire in
response. On Saturday, the IDF confirmed that terrorists in Lebanon fired
numerous rockets at Israel the previous night. The Iron Dome aerial-defense
system was not activated as the projectiles hit open areas, causing no injuries
or damage. In response, the IDF shelled the area from which the launches were
carried out, and fighter jets struck the terrorist cell responsible for the
fire. Later on Saturday, the military said that aircraft and artillery were
striking Hezbollah terrorist assets in Lebanon. Israel has responded to multiple
daily attacks from Hezbollah terrorists throughout the war against Hamas in
Gaza, but the northern border was mostly quiet during the week-long ceasefire
that ended on Friday.
Al-Rahi: Lebanese can’t be forced to bear burdens of others' war
Naharnet/December 3, 2023
Maronite Patriach Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday lamented the end of the truce in
Gaza, decrying that “the innocent people are bearing the consequences of the
destructive war.”“What is the meaning of the humanitarian truce if it will pave
the way for a ferocious war after a break,” al-Rahi wondered in his Sunday Mass
sermon.
“No one in Lebanon wants the spread of the war to the South and to our innocent
Lebanese residents there. If, God forbid, it spreads to the South, no one would
know where it would stop and the magnitude of victims and destruction it would
leave, so we pray to God to keep it away from us,” the patriarch added. “No one
can force the Lebanese people to bear the burdens of a war in which they have
nothing,” al-Rahi went on to say. The patriarch also said that “the failure to
elect a president and the closure of the presidential palace are a blatant crime
that is destroying state institutions and public administrations while spreading
chaos and corruption and tarnishing Lebanon’s civilized face.”
Netanyahu: Lebanon will be destroyed if Hezbollah launches war
Naharnet/December 3, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated numerous warnings he
had made against Hezbollah before the recent ceasefire with Hamas, telling the
Lebanese Iran-backed group that Lebanon will be destroyed if it opens up a major
war against Israel. “We are acting in the north all the time against all efforts
by Hezbollah to operate against us. We are eliminating terror cells, pushing
them away from the border, destroying munitions. We will continue with strong
deterrence in the north, and total victory in the south,” Netanyahu said. “We
will restore security to the north and the south. If Hezbollah makes a mistake
and enters into a broad war it will have destroyed Lebanon with its own hands,”
he warned. Daily skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel have renewed since the
end of the Gaza ceasefire on Friday. Three Hezbollah members and a civilian have
been killed in south Lebanon since then, raising Lebanon's death toll from the
skirmishes that erupted on October 8 to more than 100.
11 Israelis wounded as Hezbollah
and Israel trade fire anew
Associated Press/Agence France
Presse
Hezbollah on Sunday launched several attacks on Israeli positions near Lebanon’s
border, including a missile strike on a military vehicle. Eleven Israelis --
eight soldiers and three civilians -- were wounded by Hezbollah fire in the area
of Beit Hillel, army radio reported.
The Israeli military said its artillery struck sources of fire from Lebanon. It
also said its fighter jets struck other Hezbollah targets.
Mikati meets TotalEnergies CEO: The possibility of resuming
drilling as the matter is subject to report
LBCI/December 3, 2023
The caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Energy and Water Minister Walid
Fayad met with Patrick Pouyanné, the Chairman and CEO of the French company
TotalEnergies. The meeting focused on the periodic report prepared by
TotalEnergies regarding drilling and exploration for gas and oil in Lebanese
territorial waters, including the possibility of resuming drilling activities at
a second site in Block 9. Pouyanné noted that this
action is contingent upon the results obtained so far, as outlined in the
report. Additionally, discussions encompassed the potential for drilling in
Blocks 8 and 10 and the proposals submitted by TotalEnergies for solar power
generation. The Prime Minister urged expeditious
submission of the report, allowing for a comprehensive examination of the
following steps based on the findings.Furthermore, deliberations took place
regarding the proposal presented by TotalEnergies and Qatar Energies for the
swift implementation of solar power electricity generation projects.
Hezbollah: We targeted a military vehicle at the Beit Hillel base, which
resulted in fatalities and injuries
LBCI/December 3, 2023
In a recent announcement, Hezbollah declared on Sunday that it had targeted a
military vehicle at the Beit Hillel base using guided missiles, resulting in
fatalities and injuries. They stated, "We successfully
struck strategic locations in Zebdine, Radar, and Rweisat al-Alam in the
occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms, achieving direct hits with appropriate weapons."
The Israeli bombing targets the vicinity of two Lebanese
Army centers
LBCI/December 3, 2023
On Sunday, the Israeli bombing targeted the vicinity of two Lebanese Army
centers in the Maisat neighborhood, west of Wazzani, and in Sarda, with no
casualties reported.
Lebanon News
MP Najat Saliba on LBCI: Climate change affects human
health, and this is what we witnessed in Lebanon
LBCI/December 3, 2023
MP Najat Aoun Saliba announced that the work on combating climate change began
20 years ago in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).
It is a topic closely linked to the health of the earth and human health, as it
is an integral part of climate change. She pointed out that today is a very
important day at COP28 as it addresses the health issue we witnessed in Lebanon.
She emphasized that climate change affects water scarcity, intertwined with
water pollution, leading to the spread of diseases. Saliba said on LBCI, "We
witnessed changes in seasons and temperatures, with a longer summer and shorter
winter. Snow is no longer sufficient to accumulate, in addition to increased
dust in the air causing respiratory diseases."
She emphasized the need to investigate the distribution of losses.
Abiad to LBCI: We are working on preparing health institutions to confront
climate change
LBCI/December 3, 2023
Caretaker Minister of Health Firas Abiad, spoke about the impact of climate
change on health, highlighting issues related to water scarcity,
desertification, and pollution leading to respiratory diseases, cancer, and
more. During an interview with LBCI at COP28, he mentioned Lebanon's challenges
in recent years related to climate, such as the spread of cholera due to water
scarcity, high rates of cancer and asthma related to pollution. The Health
Minister emphasized the ministry's role in preparing for climate change,
mentioning a plan that includes equipping hospitals and health centers to
operate on solar energy. Abiad stressed that shared responsibility is a
fundamental principle in today's conference, especially considering Lebanon as a
country hosting a large number of refugees.
Qatar's Prime Minister: Doha is committed to ceasefire efforts
LBCI/December 3, 2023
Qatar's Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has confirmed
Doha's dedication to collaborate with all relevant parties to resume the
ceasefire and achieve a permanent cessation of hostilities. Addressing the
conclusion of the 158th meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign
ministers, he emphasized that the situation in Gaza would be a top priority on
the agenda of the upcoming Gulf summit in Doha scheduled for Tuesday.
Israel, Threatened by Hezbollah, Seeks Solution for Empty North
Antony Sguazzin/Bloomberg/December 3, 2023
A winding road in northern Israel lined with vineyards leads to Kibbutz
Menara atop the Ramim Ridge in the Naftali mountains where pomegranate and
avocado trees grow.
It should be an idyllic scene. Instead, gaping holes have been blown through the
blackened walls of the community’s double-story houses. A roof has collapsed and
a twisted lump of melted metal denotes what was once a car. For the last few
weeks, Islamist militant group Hezbollah has been firing anti-tank missiles into
the kibbutz from the Lebanese village of Meiss El Jabal in the valley a few
hundred yards below. Other villages in the region have also come under attack
and the Israeli military has responded with strikes of its own. While the
world’s attention focuses on a resumption in fighting between Israel and Hamas
militants in the Gaza Strip in the south, this largely abandoned cooperative
highlights an upcoming problem for the embattled Middle Eastern state: How to
get the tens of thousands of people who have fled the region to return when an
existential threat is in eyesight just across the border.
“Anyone who moves here will get injured. They have no actual security and no
sense of security to come back,” Yoshiau, a bearded 27-year-old mechanical
engineering student who’s also a tank captain in the Israeli military and
limited his identification to his first name in line with its rules, said in an
interview at the kibbutz. “In order to allow the citizens to come back, we have
to have a clear indication from our enemies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, that they
have no intention of attacking people.”The issue has bedeviled Israel since it
fought Hezbollah in a 34-day war in 2006. Yet the sense of precarity that
farmers and other inhabitants of Israeli villages that line the Lebanese border
live with has reached unprecedented levels since Hamas militants poured out of
Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and abducting another
240. The Israeli military hit back with air raids that reduced much of northern
Gaza to rubble and a ground invasion that Hamas authorities in the Mediterranean
strip say have killed more than 15,000 people. Fighting resumed Friday after a
seven-day pause that allowed for the exchange of some Israeli hostages and
Palestinian prisoners. The US considers Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist
organizations. Hezbollah is bigger and better-armed than Hamas, and they are
both backed by Iran and share the aim of eradicating the Jewish state. United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after the 2006 war ended,
required the establishment of a demilitarized zone between the Israeli border
and the Litani River, about 29 kilometers (18 miles) to the north. It has been
widely flouted and so far the international community has done little to enforce
it, Eyal Hulata, a former national security adviser in the Israeli government,
said in a press briefing on Thursday. “Hezbollah has planned to do something
very similar in the north for years” to the incursion carried out by Hamas, said
Yoshiau, the tank captain, who left his wife and 18-month-old son at his home
near the border with Gaza a few weeks ago to help guard the northern frontier.
There was “an informal cease-fire” with Hezbollah during the temporary truce in
the south, he said.
Hezbollah began firing volleys of mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles at
Israel on Oct. 7, the heaviest attacks it has staged since 2006. The military
was placed on high alert and fully deployed along the 48-mile-long border.
The ongoing tension was evident on Thursday morning, the day that Bloomberg
spoke to Yoshiau, with the military shooting down what it said was “a suspicious
aerial target” that crossed from Lebanon into Israel. Cross-border hostilities
resumed after the fighting in Gaza restarted. For now, many of the 250 people
who usually live in Kibbutz Menara have decamped to the town of Tiberias, an
hour’s drive south on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee, where the
government is paying for their accommodation. While the stronger military
presence may deter Hezbollah from crossing the border or stepping up its
attacks, it’s unlikely to convince Israelis who live in the region to come home.
Nor will it diminish the threat of Hezbollah’s more advanced weaponry, which
includes missiles that could strike as far afield as Eilat on Israel’s
southeastern tip.
The conundrum in the north has been put on the back burner while the military
and the government mainly focusing on the war in the south, but the problem
isn’t going away and is of major concern to some of Israel’s most prominent
business leaders. “People will not continue to be on the border with Hezbollah
breathing over them and shooting at the fence or the houses with anti-tank
missiles,” said Erel Margalit, founder and chief executive officer of Jerusalem
Capital Partners, one of Israel’s biggest venture capital firms. “Something is
going to need to be done about that either diplomatically or militarily.”The
government has begun paying incentives to workers to return to their jobs in the
north, topping up their salaries, according to Ron Tomer, president of the
Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, who says 70 of the group’s member
companies operate there. That doesn’t address the security question, or provide
long-term clarity to those who live along the northern border as to whether they
should return. While Israel, concerned about the reaction of the international
community, held back from preemptive ground invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon
for years, the Hamas attack “changes that calculus” and once it achieves its
aims in Gaza of eliminating Hamas and freeing the remaining hostages that may
change, Hulata said. “Doing what we need in Gaza is difficult enough. We don’t
need to find ourselves entangled on two fronts,” he said. “I would not propose
to any Israeli government to wait again. I think we need to act before it
happens to us and prevent another massacre of civilians in any part of
Israel.”Yoshiau, who passed corpses and cars riddled with bullet holes close to
his home when driving north to join his unit on Oct. 7, sees no immediate
alternative to Israel maintaining an enhanced military presence along the
Lebanon border. “There’s no other option,” he said, even as he bemoaned missing
key moments in his son’s childhood. “We need to be here until we can bring back
the sense of security.”
--With assistance from Ethan Bronner, Julius Domoney and Roy Katz.
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on December 03-04/2023
Iran says Israeli strike in Syria
killed 2 Revolutionary Guard members
Associated Press/December 3, 2023
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard stated through its website that two of
its forces stationed in Syria were killed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday. The
report on the Guard's news portal identified the two members as Mohammad Ali
Ataei Shourcheh and Panah Taghizadeh, and said they were carrying out an
advisory mission in Syria. It did not elaborate on their rank, or the area where
they were killed. Syrian state media, quoting an unnamed military official, said
Israeli airstrikes hit several areas on the outskirts of the capital Damascus
early Saturday. The strikes resulted in only "material losses," the report
added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war
monitor, said the strikes hit the southern Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab,
where "there are military forces working with the Lebanese Hezbollah." It said
the strike killed two Syrian citizens and two foreigners and wounded five
others. This latest development is likely to increase tensions between Israel
and Iran, which has been a staunch supporter of the militant Palestinian group
Hamas. Iranian officials have warned repeatedly that the Israel-Hamas war, which
erupted on Oct.7, could spread to other parts of the region. Iran's military
presence in Syria has been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop
Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Syria has accused Israel of
carrying out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts in
recent years — but Israel has rarely acknowledged such strikes. Iran has been a
main supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the country's 12-year
civil war. Thousands of Iran-backed fighters have been deployed in Syria where
they helped tip the balance of power in Assad's favor over the past years.
Scores of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members have been killed during the war in
Syria though Tehran has long said it has only a military advisory role in Syria.
Since the Israel-Hamas began, Israel has carried out several strikes targeting
Syria, putting the international airports of Damascus and the northern city of
Aleppo out of commission for more than a month.
IDF shells targets in Syria
after rocket fire
JNS/December 3, 2023
Israel Defense Forces artillery struck targets in Syria on Sunday morning in
response to rocket fire earlier in the day. One enemy projectile hit an open
area, causing no injuries or damage. The Iron Dome aerial-defense system was not
activated and air raid sirens were not activated in surrounding Israeli
communities. Israeli airstrikes near Damascus early Saturday killed two Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps officers. Iran said Mohammad Ali Atai Shoorcheh and
Panah Taghizadeh were “martyred” while advising the Syrian military, and blamed
“Zionists” for their deaths. Last Sunday, Israel Air Force strikes damaged
Damascus International Airport and other targets near the Syrian capital,
according to local media reports. The pro-regime Sham FM radio said the runways
were struck, in at least the fourth such instance since Iran-backed Hamas
terrorists in Gaza launched their cross-border assault on the Jewish state on
Oct 7. Israel has struck hundreds of targets in Syria in recent years as part of
an effort to prevent Iranian military entrenchment in the country. However,
Jerusalem rarely acknowledges these incidents.
Suspected U.S. strike in
Iraq kills 5 militia members, sources say
Reuters/December 3, 2023
A suspected U.S. air strike killed five members of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed
group north of the city of Kirkuk as they were preparing to launch projectiles
at U.S. forces in the country, three Iraqi security sources said. U.S. military
officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A U.S. military
official earlier in the day said U.S. and international forces faced an attack
with multiple rockets at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in northeastern Syria, but
there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure. Iraqi armed groups have
claimed more than 70 such attacks against U.S. forces since Oct. 17 over
Washington's backing of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza. The attacks paused
during the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire but have since resumed. The U.S. in
November launched two series of strikes against what it said were Iran-aligned
armed groups who had engaged in attacks against their forces. Those strikes
killed at least 10 militants who were identified both as members of shadowy
militia Kataeb Hezbollah and of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, an official
security institution composed mainly of Shi'ite Muslim armed groups, many with
close links to Iran. Iraq's government condemned those strikes as escalatory and
a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. The United States has 900 troops in Syria and
2,500 in Iraq on a mission it says aims to advise and assist local forces trying
to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large swaths of
both countries before being defeated.
Israel expands Gaza ground
offensive, says efforts in south will be 'no less strength' than in north
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP)/December 3, 2023
The Israeli military said Sunday that its ground offensive had expanded to every
part of Gaza, and authorities ordered more evacuations in the crowded south as
they vowed that operations there against Hamas would be “no less strength” than
the earlier efforts in the north. Heavy bombardment followed the evacuation
orders, and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip said they were running out of places
to go in the sealed-off territory that borders Israel and Egypt. Many of its 2.3
million people are crammed into the south after Israel ordered civilians to
leave the north in the early days of the war, which was sparked by the Oct. 7
Hamas-led attack in Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The
United Nations estimates that 1.8 million Gazans have been displaced. Juliette
Toma, director of communications at the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees,
said nearly 958,000 of them were in 99 U.N. facilities in the south.
After dark, gunfire and shelling could be heard in the central town of Deir al-Balah
as flares lit the sky. In Gaza’s second-largest city of Khan Younis, Israeli
drones buzzed overhead. U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk urged an end to the
war, saying civilian suffering was “too much to bear.”
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll there since Oct. 7 has
surpassed 15,500, with more than 41,000 wounded. The ministry does not
differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70% of the dead
were women and children. A Health Ministry spokesman asserted that hundreds had
been killed or wounded since a weeklong cease-fire ended Friday. “The majority
of victims are still under the rubble,” Ashraf al-Qidra said. Fears of a wider
conflict intensified. A U.S. warship and multiple commercial ships came under
attack in the Red Sea, the Pentagon said. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels
claimed attacks on two ships they described as being linked to Israel but did
not acknowledge targeting a U.S. Navy vessel. Hopes for another temporary truce
in Gaza were fading. The cease-fire facilitated the release of dozens of the
roughly 240 Gaza-held Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinians
imprisoned by Israel. But Israel has called its negotiators home, and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will continue until “all its goals” are
achieved. One is to remove Hamas from power in Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said resuming talks with Israel on further
exchanges must be tied to a permanent cease-fire. White House National Security
Council spokesman John Kirby told NBC’s “Meet the Press” the U.S. was working
"really hard” for a resumption of negotiations.
Israel's military widened evacuation orders in and around Khan Younis in the
south, telling residents of at least five more areas to leave. Residents said
the military dropped leaflets saying “Khan Younis city is a dangerous combat
zone" and ordering them to move south to the border city of Rafah or a coastal
area in the southwest. But Halima Abdel-Rahman, a widow and mother of four, said
she won’t heed such orders anymore. She fled her home in October to an area
outside Khan Younis, where she stays with relatives. “The occupation tells you
to go to this area, then they bomb it,” she said by phone. "The reality is that
no place is safe in Gaza. They kill people in the north. They kill people in the
south.”The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has urged Israel to avoid
significant new mass displacement and do more to protect civilians. U.S. Vice
President Kamala Harris told Egypt's president 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.
On the ground in Gaza, there was frustration and mourning. Outside a Gaza City
hospital, a dust-covered boy named Saaed Khalid Shehta dropped to his knees
beside the bloodied body of his little brother Mohammad, one of several bodies
laid out after people said their street was hit by airstrikes. He kissed him.
“You bury me with him!” the boy cried. A health worker at Al-Ahli Baptist
Hospital said more than 15 children were killed. Israel's military said its
fighter jets and helicopters struck targets in the Gaza Strip including “tunnel
shafts, command centers and weapons storage facilities." It acknowledged
”extensive aerial attacks in the Khan Younis area."The bodies of 31 people
killed in bombardment of central Gaza were taken to the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir
al-Balah, said Omar al-Darawi, a hospital administrative employee. One woman
wept, cradling a child’s body. Another carried the body of a baby. Later,
hospital workers reported 11 more dead after another airstrike. Bloodied
survivors included a child carried in on a mattress. Outside a morgue in Khan
Younis, resident Samy al-Najeila carried the body of a child. He said his sons
had been preparing to evacuate their home, “but the occupation didn’t give us
any time. The three-floor building was destroyed completely, the whole block was
totally destroyed.” He said six of the bodies were his relatives. “Five people
are still under the rubble,” he said. “God help us.”During a trip to the United
Arab Emirates as the top U.S. representative at the U.N. climate conference,
Harris said: "Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Mark Regev, a
senior adviser to Netanyahu, said Israel was making “maximum effort” to protect
civilians. In addition to the leaflets, the military has used phone calls and
radio and TV broadcasts to urge Gazans to move from specific areas.
Israel says it targets Hamas operatives and blames civilian casualties on the
militants, accusing them of operating in residential neighborhoods. It claims to
have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence. Israel says at
least 78 of its soldiers have been killed in the offensive in northern Gaza.
The widening offensive likely will further complicate humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority, said 100 aid
trucks entered Sunday, but U.N. agencies have said 500 trucks per day on average
entered before the war. The renewed hostilities also have heightened concerns
for the 137 hostages who the Israeli military believes are still being held by
Hamas. During the recent truce, 105 hostages were freed, and Israel released 240
Palestinian prisoners. Most of those released by both sides were women and
children.
The families of hostages have called for an urgent meeting with Israel's
Security Cabinet, saying time is “running out to save those still held by Hamas.”Elsewhere
in the region, Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group said it struck Israeli
positions near the tense Lebanon-Israel border. Eleven people — eight soldiers
and three civilians — were wounded by Hezbollah fire in the area of Beit Hillel,
army radio reported. The military said its artillery struck sources of fire from
Lebanon. It also said its fighter jets struck other Hezbollah targets. And Iraqi
militants with the Iran-backed umbrella group the Islamic Resistance in Iraq
said they struck the Kharab al-Jir U.S. military base in Syria with rockets. A
U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with
regulations, said rockets hit Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria but there were no
reports of casualties or damage.
Israeli security chief in recording vows to hunt down Hamas
abroad -Kan TV
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/December 3, 2023
Israel will hunt down Hamas in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar even if it takes years,
the head of Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet said in a recording aired
by Israel's public broadcaster Kan on Sunday. It was unclear when Shin Bet chief
Ronen Bar made the remarks or to whom. The agency itself declined to comment on
the report. "The cabinet has set us a goal, in street talk, to eliminate Hamas.
This is our Munich. We will do this everywhere, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in
Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar. It will take a few years but we will be there to
do it." By Munich, Bar was referring to Israel's response to the 1972 killing of
11 Israeli Olympic team members when gunmen from the Palestinian Black September
group launched an attack on the Munich games. Israel responded by carrying out a
targeted assassination campaign against Black September operatives and
organizers over several years and in several countries.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas after its gunmen on Oct. 7 burst through
the border with Gaza, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around
240 hostage. More than 15,500 people have been killed so far during Israel's
offensive in Gaza since, according to Gaza's health ministry. Other than in
Gaza, Hamas leaders reside in or frequently visit Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar.
Qatar helped to mediate a week-long truce that broke down on Friday. Over the
years, various countries have offered some protection for Hamas, designated a
terrorist group by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan and the
United States. In 1997, Israeli Mossad agents botched the poisoning of then-Hamas
leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan. Israel had to give Jordan an antidote to save
Meshaal's life. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister at the
time.
Israel-Gaza war: Israeli forces pushing into south Gaza
BBC/December 3, 2023
Israeli ground forces are pushing into southern Gaza, after three days of heavy
bombardment. Initial reports from Israeli army radio effectively confirmed
Israel has launched a ground operation to the north of Khan Younis. The BBC has
also verified images of an Israeli tank operating near the city. The head of the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later told troops the IDF was also fighting
"strongly and thoroughly" in south Gaza. Lt General Herzi Halevi was speaking to
reservists from the Gaza division about military objectives and the IDF's
killing of Hamas commanders. He told the soldiers: "We fought strongly and
thoroughly in the northern Gaza Strip, and we are also doing it now in the
southern Gaza Strip". An IDF spokesman later confirmed Israel "continues to
expand the ground incursion" across all of Gaza, including troops "conducting
face to face battles with terrorists".
Since a week-long ceasefire ended on Friday, Israel has resumed a large-scale
bombing campaign on Gaza, which residents of Khan Younis have described as the
heaviest wave of attacks so far. The seven-day truce saw Hamas release 110
hostages being held in Gaza in return for 240 Palestinians being released from
Israeli prisons. On Sunday morning, the Israeli army issued evacuation orders
for several districts of Khan Younis, urging people to leave immediately.
Israeli authorities believe members of the Hamas leadership are hiding in the
city, where hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering after fleeing
fighting in the north in the early stages of the war. A UN official has
described a "degree of panic" he has not seen before in a Gaza hospital, after
the Israeli military shifted the focus of its offensive to the south. James
Elder, from the children's agency Unicef, described Nasser Medical Hospital in
Khan Younis as a "warzone". An adviser to Israel's prime minister said Israel is
making "maximum effort" to avoid killing civilians. Mr Elder told the BBC he
could hear constant large explosions close to the Nasser hospital and children
were arriving with head injuries, terrible burns, and shrapnel from recent
blasts. "It's a hospital I've gone to regularly and the children know me now,
the families know me now. Those same people are grabbing my hand, or grabbing my
shirt saying 'please take us somewhere safe. Where is safe?'""They are
unfortunately asking a question to which the only answer is there is nowhere
safe. And that includes for them, as they know, that hospital," he said.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 500 people have been killed
since the bombing resumed. More than 15,500 people have been killed in the strip
since the war began, the ministry also said. A Palestinian woman is rushed into
hospital following an Israeli strike Nasser hospital in Khan Younis has been
described by a UN official as a "warzone" since IDF airstrikes began again.
Mohammed Ghalayini, a British-Palestinian who has stayed in Gaza, said the
situation in the city was "beyond catastrophic". "People have been, for 50 days
or more, withstanding brutal Israeli onslaught and are very low on all resources
- food, water, power and the sanitation and the waste services," he told the BBC
by phone, before the connection cut off. The air pollution expert, who normally
lives in Manchester, arrived in Gaza for a three-month visit to see his mother
shortly before the 7 October attacks.
Israel began its retaliatory bombing of Gaza following Hamas's attacks on
southern Israel on 7 October, which saw around 1,200 people killed and 240 taken
hostage. Rockets have also been regularly fired at Israel from Gaza since
fighting resumed on Friday. A 22-year-old man in the city of Holon, near Tel
Aviv, was treated for minor shrapnel injuries on Saturday.Hundreds of thousands
of people have already fled the fighting to take shelter in Khan Younis, after
Israel told them to leave the north of the strip. The latest UN update says
around 1.8 million people are internally displaced in Gaza. Speaking to the BBC,
the UN's human rights chief, Filippo Grandi, said Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
are being "pushed more and more towards a narrow corner of what is already a
very narrow territory". The IDF has begun posting maps of areas set to be
attacked online. It says these maps, along with other measures like phone calls
and leaflets being dropped on Gaza by plane, will warn people to evacuate.
Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's senior adviser Mark Regev said civilians are not targets
and protecting them is made more difficult by Hamas "embedding its military
terror machine" in civilian neighbourhoods. He says the IDF are trying to be "as
surgical as we can in a very difficult combat situation", and has given advance
warning of attacks. Separately, the IDF say they have destroyed 500 "terror
tunnel" shafts used by Hamas in Gaza, out of the 800 they say have been found so
far. It also said around 10,000 air strikes on "terror targets" have been
carried out by the air force "under the guidance of IDF soldiers on the ground"
since the war began.
Kirby says intelligence
sources did not have access to Hamas’ attack plan after NYT report
Lauren Sforza/The Hill/December 3, 2023
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the intelligence community
was not aware of a document detailing militant group Hamas’ plans to attack
Israel that The New York Times reported on last week. “The intelligence
community has indicated that they did not have access to this document that
there’s no indications at this time if they had any access to this document
beforehand,” Kirby said when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked him about The Times’
report on “Meet the Press.”The New York Times reported last week that Israel was
aware of Hamas’ plan to launch an attack on its soil more than a year before the
Oct. 7 attack that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead. The Times’ article
outlined a 40-page report named “Jericho Wall” that described what kind of
incursion Hamas’ was planning into Israel and what kind of destruction it could
cause. However, The Times reported that Israeli military and intelligence
officials dismissed the report, saying that the plan was “aspirational.” The
Times cited multiple interviews, documents and emails to back its reporting.
Kirby dodged answering whether the U.S. should have had access to the document
when pressed further by Welker, who pointed to the coordination between the two
countries’ intelligence agencies. “Intelligence is a mosaic and sometimes you
know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture,” he said.
“Other times, you know, there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I
said, our own intelligence community said that they’ve looked at this. They have
no indications at this time that that they had any advanced warning of this
document or any knowledge of it.”The plan reported by The Times included Hamas
saying they would bombard Israel with rockets and use drones to disable security
abilities near the border. The Times also noted that a 2016 memo by Hamas and
obtained by the newspaper said the militants wanted to take hostages into Gaza.
The attack on Oct. 7 echoed the details laid out in the plan, with more than
1,200 Israelis killed and another 240 people captured by the militants and taken
into Gaza. Both Israeli and U.S. officials have previously said that they will
look into what intelligence may have been missed leading up to the attacks after
the conflict is resolved. “I think there’s going to be a time and a place for
Israel to do that sort of forensic work,” Kirby said on Sunday. “I mean, Prime
Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has already spoken pretty candidly about this and
calling it you know, a failure on their part.”“They’ll take a look at this at
the right time. They need to do that right now though, the focus has got to be
on making sure that they can eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the
Israeli people,” Kirby continued.
Wounded and dead overwhelm southern Gaza hospital on third day of renewed war
GAZA (Reuters)/ December 3, 2023
In southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital, a young man cradled the lifeless body of his
brother then reached out to try to grab a medic running past him in the
corridor. "My brother!", the man yelled out, crying and slapping the floor as
others crowded around him seeking treatment for their wounded and mourning their
loved ones on Sunday, the third day of renewed warfare and Israeli bombardment.
The hospital is one of only a handful operating in Khan Younis, a southern city
which residents say is one of the focuses of the Israeli offensive that resumed
on Friday after the collapse of a truce with Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Nearby, doctors stepped over bodies and pools of blood as they rushed to their
next case, and relatives brought more dazed and sometimes unconscious children
through the main doors. Footage taken by Reuters showed about a dozen young
people needing treatment, several of them with what looked like serious
injuries.The U.N. and aid groups say dozens of medics have been killed since the
war began and basic supplies, including fuel to run generators, are running
short in hospitals and clinics. More than 15,500 people have been confirmed
killed in Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to Gaza's health
ministry. Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 rampage
by the militants, when gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages,
according to Israeli tallies. Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, has ruled
Gaza since 2007. Israel's bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza laid waste to
much of the territory. The Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday that 316
had been killed since Friday in Gaza since the truce expired following the
breakdown in talks over an exchange of prisoners and hostages. There was no
immediate comment from Israel on the reports of Sunday's strikes. The Israeli
military earlier ordered Palestinians to evacuate several areas in and around
Khan Younis and posted a map highlighting shelters they should go to. But
residents said that areas they had been told to go to were themselves coming
under attack. One man at Nasser Hospital told Reuters that an air strike had hit
a house in the city and he had carried a young boy who was injured to the
hospital, but the boy had died in his arms on the way. Reuters could not verify
that account. Elsewhere in Khan Younis, families gathered at funerals. One man,
Akram el-Rakab, said he was burying his son as well as a sister and a nephew. He
said he was praying to God to help Palestinians stay strong and would stay where
he was in the city.
Israel says it uncovered 800 shafts to Hamas tunnels below
Gazaalestinian Islamist group Hamas in northern Gaza
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/December 3, 2023
Israeli forces have found 800 shafts leading to Hamas' vast subterranean network
of tunnels and bunkers since a Gaza ground operation began on Oct 27, and have
destroyed more than half of them, the military said on Sunday. The Palestinian
Islamist group said before the now eight-week-old war in the Gaza Strip that it
had hundreds of kilometres of tunnels - a network comparable in size to the New
York subway system - to protect and serve as operational bases. That has made
them prime targets for Israeli air strikes with penetrating munitions and army
engineers using mapping robots and exploding gel that can be poured into the
passages. "The tunnel shafts were located in civilian areas, many of which were
near or inside civilian buildings and structures, such as schools,
kindergartens, mosques and playgrounds," the military said in a statement on
Sunday. The statement, summarising anti-tunnel operations so far, followed
near-daily accounts to the media by troops who said they uncovered access shafts
in civilian sites. The war's civilian toll has increasingly worried world
powers. Washington urged Israel to use caution on Saturday. Of some 800 shafts
discovered, the military said, 500 had been destroyed using a variety of
operational methods, including by "detonation and by sealing off". It added that
"many miles" of main tunnel routes had also been destroyed.
US and Israeli officials react to blockbuster report that Israel knew Hamas was
planning attack
ABC/December 3, 2023
In the wake of blockbuster new reporting that Israel was aware Hamas was
planning a major terror attack a year in advance, American officials are
continuing to assess that information while Israel plans to conduct its own
investigation after the fighting with Hamas, officials said Sunday. "All of
these questions, we're going to have to get to the bottom of it after the war,"
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer told ABC "This Week" anchor
George Stephanopoulos. Dermer maintained that he had been unaware of this
intelligence until it was published in The New York Times late last week. White
House spokesman John Kirby, in a separate "This Week" appearance, was pressed by
Stephanopoulos on whether the U.S. had any warning of the attack or should have.
"Our intelligence community is taking a look into that," Kirby said. But he
added, "They have no indications that we, the United States intelligence
community, had any knowledge of that [Hamas planning] document beforehand or any
visibility into it."Kirby also noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has said there were intelligence failures.
Houthis claim
responsibility for the attack on two ships in Red Sea
AFP/December 3, 2023
Houthis in Yemen declared that they attacked two ships off the Yemeni coast,
specifying that the targeting of the "Israeli" vessels is in response to the
ongoing war in Gaza. In a statement released by the Iran-backed Houthi group,
they claimed to have executed a "targeting operation against two Israeli ships
in the Bab el-Mandeb" – the strategic maritime passage connecting the Red Sea to
the Gulf of Aden.
The statement highlighted that the first ship was targeted with a naval missile,
while a maritime drone hit the second.
COP28: The link between climate change and health
LBCI/December 3, 2023
In a groundbreaking move, this year's Climate Change Conference COP28 directly
focuses on health and its profound connection to climate change.
The United Arab Emirates adopted an initiative, with over 120 countries
endorsing a declaration to center health at the core of climate action. The aim
is to expedite the development of sustainable, equitable, and climate-resilient
healthcare systems. For the first time, the World
Health Organization (WHO) organized a Health Day at the summit, attracting
health ministers from around the globe. Notably, represented by its Health
Minister, Lebanon actively participated, underlining the vital intersection of
health and climate concerns. The significance of this event lies in elevating
health and the healthcare sector to the forefront of climate-related conferences
on its fourth day. The chairman of the COP28, Minister Sultan Al-Jaber, noted
that "Climate impacts are affecting food security, water security, and of course
clean air. The World Health Organization estimates that seven million deaths
could be attributed to air pollution alone."
More than 15,500 Palestinians killed from Israeli bombing
in Gaza: Health Ministry
AFP/December 3, 2023
The death toll from the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip rose to 15,523, Hamas'
Health Ministry said on Sunday. "Israel's aggression against the Gaza Strip has
risen to 15,523 martyrs and 41,316 people have been injured," the ministry said
in a statement.
Buffer zone: Israel's proposed plan for Gaza's future borders sparks rejections
LBCI/December 3, 2023
In a clear stance, US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed her rejection of
any proposals to amend the boundaries of the Gaza Strip as part of Israel's
suggested plans for the territory's future. Harris's
candid remarks echo the rejection previously conveyed by US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken to the Israeli government concerning the proposed plan for
establishing a buffer zone in Gaza after the war. The
plan aims to prevent the return of Hamas elements to the borders with Israeli
settlements. The Israeli government's miniaturized plan, revealed by Netanyahu's
foreign policy advisor Ophir Falk, outlines three post-Hamas elimination
objectives: destroying Hamas, disarming Gaza, and eradicating extremism in the
region.The "buffer zone" could be part of the disarmament process. Still, its
depth remains unclear, potentially extending one to two kilometers into the
41-kilometer-long Gaza Strip, approximately 12 kilometers wide to the north.
What is the purpose behind this zone? The
primary purpose of this zone is not, of course, protection from Hamas rockets
that primarily target north of Tel Aviv. Instead, it may serve as partial
reassurance for settlers who are apprehensive about returning to the border
areas, fearing a recurrence of October 7 scenarios once the war ends. However,
Haaretz newspaper argues that this zone alone will not provide the residents of
southern Israel with the security that was taken from them without arrangements
with the Palestinian Authority, which will eventually govern the Gaza Strip.
Experts and diplomats suggest that this proposed zone is unlikely to succeed, as
all Arab, regional, and international parties reject it.
Ultimately, it is seen as a concept that would further inflame the war,
prolonging the duration beyond the cessation of hostilities.
German tourist killed and two wounded in Paris knife attack
Associated Press/December 3, 2023
French police arrested a man who targeted passersby in Paris on Saturday night,
killing a German tourist with a knife and injuring two others, France's interior
minister said. Police subdued the man, a 25-year-old French citizen who had
spent four years in prison for planning a violent offense. After his arrest, he
expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the
Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, French
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. The attacker apparently cried "Allahu
Akbar" (God is great), Darmanin added. "This person was ready to kill others,"
Darmanin told reporters. The anti-terrorism prosecutor's office confirmed it has
opened an investigation. The attacker went after a German couple with a knife,
killing the man and used a hammer to injure two others. The attacker, who was
not identified by name, left prison after four years in 2020 and was under
surveillance and undergoing psychiatric treatment, the minister said, painting a
brief portrait of the assailant, who was born in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, a Paris
suburb. He was most recently living with his parents in the Essonne region,
south of Paris. The fatal attack occurred in the 15th district of the French
capital with the assailant using a knife to kill the German tourist, who was not
identified. He then crossed the Seine river to the Right Bank and used a hammer
to attack the injured. Details about the victims were not immediately known. The
attacker was stopped by police who twice fired a taser at him in the stomach,
the minister said, praising the officers for their quick response and
reiterating that "there would doubtless have been other dead." France has been
under a heightened terror alert since the fatal stabbing in October of a teacher
in the northern city of Arras by a former student originally from the Ingushetia
region in Russia's Caucasus Mountains and suspected of Islamic radicalization.
That fatal attack came three years after another teacher was killed outside
Paris, beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police. The Saturday
attack raised the fear level in the French capital, still marked by the 2015
attacks of cafes and a music hall by Islamist radicals that killed 130 people.
"We will cede nothing in the face of terrorism. Never," Prime Minister Elisabeth
Borne said on X, formerly Twitter, sending her condolences to the victims and
their families.
US VP focuses on shaping post-war Gaza in diplomatic blitz in UAE with Arab
leaders
Associated Press/December 3, 2023
Vice President Kamala Harris engaged in a speed round of diplomatic talks with
Arab leaders on Saturday where she focused on shaping the outlook for a
post-conflict Gaza while calling on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian
civilians from the "devastating" bombardment. She made a hastily planned trip to
the United Arab Emirates as the top American representative at the U.N. climate
conference but the Israel-Ham1,as war was a main objective of her visit. She met
with leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan and spoke by phone
with Qatar's emir. Her efforts to focus on what Gaza will look like once the
fighting ends played out against the backdrop of an overpowering attack that
Israel has unleashed on the crowded southern area of the territory since
fighting resumed Friday morning after a weeklong truce. "As Israel defends
itself, it matters how. The United States is unequivocal: International
humanitarian law must be respected," Harris said after her meetings. "Too many
innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering
and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.'' She added that as
Israel "pursues its military objectives in Gaza, we believe Israel must do more
to protect innocent civilians."Dubai is the first Arab nation to host an annual
U.N. environmental gathering where world leaders discuss ways to best slow the
effects of climate change. Harris said she had "productive" talks on the summit
sidelines with Middle Eastern leaders. She said she and President Joe Biden have
repeatedly noted the magnitude of the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7 that
triggered the war, while also hailing a recent pause in fighting to enable the
release of more than 100 hostages taken by Hamas. The vice president said that,
at some point, the fighting will draw to an end and a plan must be ready for
what comes next. Since the pause in fighting ended, according to the Health
Ministry in Gaza, Israeli strikes on houses and buildings have killed more than
200 Palestinians. "There is a mutual desire to figure out how we are going to
figure out and approach 'the day after' in ways that bring stability and peace
to this region," Harris said, referring to a time when fighting in Gaza
subsidies. Harris spent just one day at the conference and her Saturday schedule
was so packed that the vice president wasn't in the cavernous, IMAX-style
conference room when her name was called to participate in a session with other
leaders on the best ways to make a just and orderly transition to cleaner
energy. Her chair sat empty on stage until her name was called again near the
end of the meeting, when she was the only panelist who hadn't spoken. Harris
swept into the room and gave her speech, declaring that the U.S. planned to join
90-plus nations aiming to double their energy efficiency and triple renewable
energy production by 2030.
When she was done, she dashed off the stage and was nearly out of the room when
the moderator asked participants to pose for a photo. That prompted Harris to
move quickly back for the picture. Then she swept briskly through the hallway to
a waiting motorcade to take her nearby for meetings with Arab leaders. Harris
wouldn't disclose the details of her conversations with Qatar's emir about the
potential for future pauses in fighting to secure the release of additional
hostages. But she said the U.S. wants to see the release of all hostages. The
vice president said she also talked with Arab leaders about three key elements
for a post-conflict Gaza: reconstruction, security and governance. She said she
stressed that it will be up to the region's key nations, as well as other
nations and organizations, to "dedicate significant resources" to rebuilding
hospitals and housing. Electricity and clean water must be available, while
bakeries must be able to reopen, she said. Harris said Palestinian Authority
security forces "must be strengthened to eventually assume security
responsibilities in Gaza" while stressing that terrorists cannot be allowed to
continue to threaten Israel as a condition for security.
Lastly, Harris said the Palestinian Authority in control of the West Bank should
also govern in Gaza to achieve a lasting peace, echoing similar sentiments to
those of Biden. "The Palestinian Authority must be revitalized, driven by the
will of the Palestinian people," the vice president said, adding that it would
"allow them to benefit from the rule of law and a transparent responsive
government."
US defense chief says Israel must shield civilians to win in Gaza
Agence France Presse/December 3, 2023
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday urged Israel to protect
civilians as it battles Hamas in Gaza, saying that shielding noncombatants is
necessary for victory in the urban fight against the Palestinian militant group.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed the day before after a week-long truce
between the two sides collapsed, with both sides blaming the other for the
breakdown of the deal and the resumption of violence. Austin told the Reagan
National Defense Forum in California that he had "learned a thing or two about
urban warfare" while fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign against the
Islamic State jihadist group (ISIS). "Like Hamas, ISIS was deeply embedded in
urban areas. And the international coalition against ISIS worked hard to protect
civilians and create humanitarian corridors, even during the toughest battles,"
Austin said. "The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting
civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting
civilians," he said. "In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the
civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you
replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat." The latest round of
fighting in the long-running conflict between Israel and Hamas began when the
Palestinian militant group carried out a shock cross-border attack from Gaza on
October 7 that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded
with a relentless land and air campaign on Hamas-controlled Gaza that the
group's officials say has killed more than 15,000 people. Those deaths have
provoked widespread anger in the Middle East and provided an impetus for armed
groups to carry out attacks against American troops in the region as well as on
Israel. Israel has faced drone and missiles launched from Lebanon and Yemen,
while American forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted in a series of
attacks that have injured dozens of US personnel. Washington has blamed the
attacks on its personnel on Iran-backed forces and responded with air strikes on
multiple occasions in recent weeks. "We will not tolerate attacks on American
personnel. And so these attacks must stop," Austin said. "Until they do, we will
do what we need to do to protect our troops -- and to impose costs on those who
attack them."
Israel widens evacuation orders as it shifts its offensive to southern Gaza amid
heavy bombardments
Associated Press/December 3, 2023
Israel's military on Sunday ordered more areas in and around Gaza's
second-largest city of Khan Younis to evacuate, as it shifted its offensive to
the southern half of the territory where it says many Hamas leaders are hiding.
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 fighting, 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
residents to move south to Rafah or to a coastal area in the southwest. "Khan
Younis city is a dangerous combat zone," the leaflets read. U.N. monitors said
in a report issued before the latest evacuation orders that the areas residents
were told to leave make up about one-quarter of the territory of Gaza. The
report said that these areas were home to nearly 800,000 people before the war.
Ahead of a resumption of fighting, the United States, Israel's closest ally, had
warned Israel to avoid significant new mass displacement. The Israeli military
said Sunday that its fighter jets and helicopters "struck terror targets in the
Gaza Strip, including terror tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons storage
facilities" overnight, while a drone killed five Hamas fighters. In
northern Gaza, rescue teams with little equipment scrambled Sunday to dig
through the rubble of buildings in the Jabaliya 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 artillery shelling in his neighborhood
and surrounding areas. "The situation here is imaginable," he said. "Death is
everywhere. One can die in a flash."The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza 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. The ministry said 70% of the dead were women and children. It
said more than 40,000 people had been wounded since the war began. 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.
Israel says it targets Hamas operatives and blames civilian casualties on the
militants, accusing them of operating in residential neighborhoods. It claims to
have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence. Israel says at
least 78 of its soldiers have been killed in the offensive in northern Gaza.
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 Jabaliya 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. The war was sparked by an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas
and other militants that killed allegedly about 1,200 soldiers and civilians in
southern Israel. Around 240 people were taken captive. The renewed hostilities
have heightened concerns for 137 hostages, who the Israeli military says are
still being held after 105 were freed during the recent truce. Israel freed 240
Palestinians during the truce. Most of those released by both sides were women
and children.
British military reports an explosion off the coast of Yemen in the key Bab el-Mandeb
Strait
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
(AP)/December 3, 2023
A “potential explosion” has struck a key shipping route off the coast of Yemen,
the British military said Sunday. The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime
Trade Operations issued a brief warning to shippers that the incident happened
in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that separates East Africa from the Arabian
Peninsula. The UKMTO said drone activity also had been reported in the area. The
Bab el-Mandeb links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. That area has seen a series
of attacks in recent weeks attributed to Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels,
who have also launched missiles and drones toward Israel over its war on Hamas
in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
Why Israel’s peace activists are re-evaluating their position on the war
Tara John and Lottie Beilin,
CNN/December 3, 2023
When human rights activist Ziv Stahl was awakened to the booms of rocket fire on
October 7, while staying at her sister’s home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, she did not
for a moment anticipate the scale of the terrorist attack unfolding around her.
Nor did she imagine the horror she would feel when she later called the police,
who “basically told me no one is coming.”That day saw Hamas militants murder her
sister-in-law and several prominent peace activists living in the kibbutz, one
of the communities that bore the brunt of the attack on Israel.
Stahl, who is the executive director of the human rights organization Yesh Din,
says she is not calling for revenge over what happened that day nor is she
taking a pacifist position on Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza against Hamas. “I am
not saying ceasefire at any cost,” she said. “Israel has a right to defend
itself and protect Israeli citizens,” she explained, but not indiscriminately or
at the cost of thousands of Palestinian lives. Her position, which she described
as “complicated,” speaks to the challenge Israel’s peace movement faces when
coming to terms with the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Jewish Israelis who have spent their lives committed to co-existence with
Palestinians have found themselves balancing worries about the cycle of violence
churned by Israel’s war and the security needs of Israelis amid great personal
loss.
As Palestinian solidarity protests take place throughout the West, some of
Israel’s small group of leftists, peace activists and human rights advocates,
like Stahl, have chosen to take a step back from the public debate on a
permanent ceasefire. Others say finding an end to the war and forging a
two-state solution is more urgent than ever, even if it may be an unpopular
opinion in the country that over the decades has drifted rightward politically.
Some activists complain that authorities are attempting to equate peace activism
with support for Hamas. Anti-war protests have been near impossible to get
permits for, except for one in Tel Aviv by the left-wing Arab and Jewish Hadash
party. And in early November, four high-profile Palestinian political leaders in
Israel were detained for taking part in an anti-war silent protest.
The radical left
At a left-wing community space in Tel Aviv, decorated with a red banner with the
words “a nation that occupies another nation will never be free,” a group of
young Israelis discuss their newly-formed anti-war group, which they have named
“Gen Zayin,” which means Gen Z.
The group’s members have asked CNN to use pseudonyms for them, pointing to the
dozens of people arrested since October 7 in Israel for allegedly inciting
violence and terrorism. Many of those arrested are Palestinian and activists say
their arrests and detention are carried out without proper legal justification
and simply for showing support for Palestinian people. While in the West, young
voters are often more liberal than their grandparents,’ the opposite is true in
Israel, Rafael, one of Gen Zayin’s co-founders who is using a pseudonym, told
CNN. A 2022 poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that 73% of Jewish
people surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 identified as right-wing compared
with 46% of people polled over the age of 65.
The group’s anti-war position won’t be welcomed by most of the Jewish population
at this current moment, they say, which is why Gen Zayin members stick up
posters in the dead of night and surreptitiously share pamphlets that espouse
their anti-war, anti-government manifesto in high schools.
Rafael, 24, passionately supports a two-state solution and accuses the country’s
right-wingers, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of emboldening Hamas with
their attempt at repressing a Palestinian state. “The situation is
unsustainable, and the only way that we can live in a just, equal, and
democratic society is through peace, the end of occupation, eviction of the
settlers” from the West Bank and the right of return of an estimated 5.9 million
Palestinian refugees around the world, he said.
Gen Zayin members are fearful of Israeli public opinion but also feel abandoned
by parts of the Western leftist movement, who they see as advocating for the
abolition of the Israeli state. Rafael raged at an anti-war slogan he saw
online: “Do you support decolonization as an abstract concept or a tangible
event?” it read. That “tangible event” was in reference to Hamas’ attack, which
killed 1,200 people in Israel and led to the outbreak of the war, he said.
“They don’t understand that 7 million Israelis are living here, and aren’t going
anywhere, and a lot of Israelis don’t know that the 7 million Palestinians [in
Israel and the territories] are not going anywhere either,” he said. “The only
way forward is together.”
Doxed and threatened
Expressing public sympathy for Palestinians can land you in hot water. Some
Jewish Israelis have lost their jobs or have been publicly sanctioned for
speaking out in favour of Gaza, say activists. Ofer Cassif, a Hadash lawmaker in
the Knesset, told CNN he was suspended in October for 45 days for saying “the
Israeli government wanted confrontation.”He was also accused of comparing
Israel’s plan for Gaza to the Nazi Final Solution, he said. “That’s not what I
said. But they didn’t really care because that committee was interested in
political persecution, in political silencing of the opposition and dissident
voices who raise a voice against the war,” he said.The left-wing, ultra-Orthodox
journalist Israel Frey recounts how he was doxed and chased out of his home in
Jerusalem on October 15 with his wife and two children by far-right football
ultras. It was over a video of him saying the Kaddish, the Jewish mourner’s
prayer, where he prayed for those slaughtered by Hamas and for Palestinian women
and children under fire in Gaza. “Little by little, the street was filling up.
They arrived at my home. I tried to look (through) the viewfinder (in the door)
and they closed it. Knocking, trying to hurt me. Two months later I talk about
it with some amusement, but in real time it was very scary. Hundreds of people
came (and) tried to hurt me,” he told CNN from an undisclosed location, as he is
currently in hiding. Riot police officers who came to usher him out of his
apartment also tormented him, he said, with one spitting on him, he said. CNN
has reached out to Yasam, the Israel Police Special Patrol Unit, for comment.
Grieving families consider the future
Over a hot cup of tea, filled with herbs he picked from the roof garden of a
hostel he co-owns in Tel Aviv, Maoz Inon told CNN he became a peace activist a
week after his parents were killed in the October 7 attack. In that moment, he
realized that “peace is the only thing that can bring security to everyone
living in between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” he said.He has not
been sanctioned in the same way as other people in the peace movement, saying
that it’s down to him being among the families affected by Hamas’ attack. “I’m
using my privilege and 15 minutes of fame of being a victim in order to prevent
others from becoming victims,” Inon said. Not many Jewish peace activists are
ready to vocally advocate for peace “because everyone is traumatized – but I
have the words,” Inon said.
Speaking from a suburban community near Jerusalem, just meters away from the
Green Line with the occupied West Bank, Israeli American Elana Kaminka told CNN
she used to buy vegetables from a small Palestinian village across the border.
But everything changed after October 7, when her 20-year-old son Yannai was
killed as he heroically defended Zikim training base near the border with Gaza,
she said. Since then, the metaphorical and physical walls have gone up around
her stretch of the Green Line. The checkpoints have hardened and many
Palestinians living in the West Bank, have seen permits for work in Israel
revoked, say Kaminka, who has not visited the village since her son died. If
Israelis “really understood what was happening in the territories – the actual
practical meaning of the occupation – I think their opinions would be
different,” she told CNN from the home she shares with her husband and three
other children. “And for Palestinians, also, it’s very easy to demonize Israelis
and every Israeli soldier as a horrible person. It is super easy to live in a
bubble where you don’t have any interaction with the other side.”
The grief she feels for the loss of her son is all encompassing. She has
struggled to write or continue with her volunteer work, which includes
supporting victims of racist violence and transporting unwell Palestinian
children to Israeli hospitals.
Kaminka does not have a clear position on the war and, like Stahl, says there
are huge security concerns at play, especially when more than 100 hostages
remain in Gaza. What she is certain of is that, in the long-term,
Jewish-Palestinian coexistence is the only way forward.
While pointing to the Palestinian village she used to visit, she said: “We have
to find a way to build a common society that feels fair and feels just to as
many people as possible.”
Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on December 03-04/2023
Nazis, Muslims and the Jews ...Did Nazis carry out the
horrific Oct 7th massacre?
Mordechai Nisan /Front Page/December 03/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/124901/mordechai-nisan-nazis-muslims-and-the-jews-did-nazis-carry-out-the-horrific-oct-7th-massacre-%d9%85%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%8a-%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%b2/
One of the most accurate aspects about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is the
use of the word Nazi to describe the terrorist enemy. No other label or
historical parallel could capture the chilling ferocious madness – but not scope
– of Palestinian butchery of Israelis. The Nazi vilification epithet has now
become conventional Israeli discourse in public and media circles with the vivid
revelation – in words and photos – of Palestinian savagery and barbarism by
Hamas on October 7. Hamas terrorists, without an ounce of inhibition or remorse,
shot youth in cold blood at the music festival at Re’im, burnt and beheaded
Jews, vaunting their sadistic impulses upon children, men, and the elderly –
raping women and girls. They decapitated a baby cut from the mother’s womb in
front of her eyes. The pyromaniacs set fire to homes, barns and cars.
Nazis and Jews
The murder of approximately 1,200 Israelis in an orgy of bloodshed evoked the
sensation that Nazis carried out such a horrific massacre of helpless Jews on
that ‘Black Saturday’ on Gaza’s border. Decades of Palestinian terrorism
upgraded from stoning and stabbing Jews to the diabolical nightmare of Nazi
crematoria – burning Jewish people alive. Later, in a child’s room in Gaza,
Israeli soldiers came upon an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s bible.
The kidnapping of 241 Israelis to Gaza became an additional chilling chapter of
this unparalleled ordeal.
Are the Palestinians Nazis by ideology?
Berl Katznelson, the foremost leader of Labor Zionism until his death in 1944,
was a witness to Arab massacres of Jews in the 1920s and 1930s. He referred to
“the Palestinian Nazis who succeeded to unite here in [Eretz] Israel the
zoological antisemitism of Europe and the lust for the dagger of the Orient.”
The connection between Nazis and Palestinians led the esteemed songwriter Naomi
Shemer to offer a remarkable insight:
“Arabs like their murder hot, moist, and steamy, and if they will ever be free
to fulfill themselves, we [Jews] will yearn for the good sterile gasses of the
Germans.”
In Kfar Aza and Be’eri, Nir Oz and Sderot, there was no Palestinian
industrialized war machine in operation; rather just primitive hordes of
“Muhammad’s monsters”[1] mangling and mutilating Jews whose innocence, in the
double sense of the word, became ready prey for the Gazan rabble run wild. To
define those Hamas Palestinian as ‘terrorists’ is a gross understatement,
perhaps a euphemism.
In Israel today, after the October 7 pogrom, the liberation of language has
allowed the use of ‘Nazi’ to describe the horrendous event. During the entire
year prior to the pogrom, the leftist street protests against the judicial
reform package of the Netanyahu government introduced the odious word – Nazi –
specifically targeting Netanyahu himself. Placards portrayed him in a Nazi
uniform, the demonization of the prime minister becoming a central axis of the
intense brainwashing campaign. The year 1933 became a symbolic benchmark for
Netanyahu’s devious dictatorial designs – said the protest.
Of memorable notoriety was ex-general and member of Knesset Yair Golan’s
“processes speech” from 2018 that hinted Israel was already adopting Nazi
features in its ideological transformation from a democracy to a dictatorship.
The end of liberty in Israel was approaching. The leftist-liberal secular camp,
unhinged and full of hatred for Netanyahu during the decades of his premiership,
had lost its cultural poise and historical judgment.[2] When the Arab Nazis
struck and slaughtered in October, the outrageous accusation that the
rightist-nationalist camp is Nazi-like paled and dissolved.
The gruesome real Nazis changed the contours of the domestic Israeli dialogue.
Now Netanyahu, the would-be Nazi in the furtive imagination of some bewitched
Israelis, labeled Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, “a little Hitler hiding in a
bunker” on November 5. Here was a candidate worthy of the title.
However, many years earlier, the enemies of Israel from near and far had adopted
the Nazi charge against the Jewish state as an ideological staple of
de-legitimization. The Russians had initiated this perversion of comparing
Zionism to Nazism, and their Syrian proxy followed suit. The loathsome
‘Zionism-is-Nazism’ canard served to vilify Israel and render its existence to
be a wicked injustice imposed on the Arabs, Muslims, and the world.[3] This
fabricated indictment shaped the victimology of the Palestinians that became a
marketable political logo.
Incompatibilities and Conflict: The Primacy of Islam
Islam, the religion of the Muslim faithful, predominates in the political
calculus of Hamas (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement). This
turns the Israeli–Palestinian clash into a Muslim–Jewish religious war. In the
language of the Hamas covenant from 1988 (Art. 15): “the Palestinian problem is
a religious problem” which obligates Muslims to conduct jihad. In Articles 20
and 31 Hamas makes the heinous accusation that Israel uses Nazi methods against
the Palestinian people. Where has Israel concealed those death camps and gas
ovens? Needless to say that the very victims of Nazism are not the Palestinians
but the Jews, then in Europe and now in the Middle East.
It is worth recalling that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) earlier
flung the Nazi charge against Israel in its 1964 Charter (Art. 22). This
diatribe against Zionism is an incredulous inversion of truth, no less because
of the intimate collaboration in World War II between Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini,
the Palestinian leader in British-mandated Palestine. The latter’s ideological
and nationalist successor, Yasser Arafat, stated in an interview in 1981 that
“the Zionist invasion recalled the Nazi invasion” (of Austria, Poland…).[4]
Fatah, the core faction in the PLO, and Hamas are of one Palestinian mind.
The religious engine instructing, validating, inspiring, and mobilizing Hamas
is, expectedly, the Koran. The book of Allah revealed to the prophet Muhammad
guidance in confirming that the only true faith is Islam (3:18), it is above all
religions (48:28), and it will conquer or convert the entire world. To “fight
for the cause of Allah” (9:111) against “those who do not embrace the true
faith” (9:29) is the greatest deed a Muslim can do. The “believers” (Muslims)
must confront the “unbelievers” (Jews) and thereby establish truth and justice
on earth. Indeed, “ruthlessness toward unbelievers” (48:29), beheading without
mercy, is the mark of Islam as a complete religious-political way of life. For
hundreds of years Muslim regimes applied restrictions and humiliations against
dhimmi Jews (and Christians) in the lands of Islam[5] – similar to Nazi
Germany’s anti-Semitic legislation, turning Jewish citizens into outcasts and
dwarfing their public presence. With the spread of armed radical Islam, militant
and triumphalist, Muslims seek nothing less than a resounding victory against
the Jewish people.
With an ineluctable mandate from Kitab Allah (The Book of God), no moral
restrictions stayed the hand of Hamas savages. Like the Nazis in the 1930s,
Hamas was always rearming and preparing for the war it would start. Nazis
reviled the godless communists, Hamas reviled godless Fatah – and both saw the
Jews as the ultimate and diabolical enemy. Hitler aroused frenzy among the
Germans, he whipped up passion and hatred, and the mob would follow him; all
this featured in the role of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successors – Ismail
Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. In both cases, Germany and Palestine, exultant mass
support for the regime as befits totalitarian movements was more essential than
the democratic vote that brought them to power.
Hamas cutthroats and murderers assaulted civilian communities and military posts
across the Gaza line and slaughtered the Israelis. The spirit of Itbach el-Yahud
– “slaughter the Jews” – filled the air. This sacred mission gave life
significance and purpose. Twelve hundred dead Israelis and 241 Israeli hostages
were a trophy of victory that, when the news of the operation spread, brought
the Gazan Palestinians to the streets, joyous at the Jewish blood spilled, and –
as is customary – to distribute sweets and candies in celebration. Fatah
followers in the West Bank were no less exuberant.
The Hamas plan for war was sophisticated in its tactical maneuvers and deceptive
in implementation. In the months prior, Sinwar had avoided provoking Israel,
rather conveying his emphasis on economic development for Gaza and shying away
from joining the more active terror campaign by Islamic Jihad in Samaria.
Netanyahu apparently may have believed that Israel had successfully deterred
Hamas from any concerted military campaign. In the German case, until September
1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, Hitler conducted a disinformation campaign
aimed at America, England, and Russia, to conceal his intention to go to war.[6]
In the end, Hitler fooled Chamberlain and later Stalin; Sinwar arguably fooled
Netanyahu – as Arafat fooled Rabin, not with war but with a peace offensive.
War is at the heart of Islam and conquest is the banner of its glory. Ayatollah
Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran inspiring, training,
arming, and financing Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups, declared in a
speech in 1942 that Islam is not a religion of peace. Rather, “Kill them [the
non-Muslims] put them to the sword…Whatever good there is exists thanks to the
sword.”[7] Religious euphoria bonds with the Islamic maxim: Din Muhammad bi’l
Saif (the religion of Muhammad by the sword). Khomeini demanded that no one
should insult Islam by calling it a religion of peace. His Hamas proxies, bold
and ferocious, did not disappoint.
The classic Islamic works – Sirat Rasul Allah and The Sahih Al-Bukhari Anthology
– relate the gruesome actions and instructions of Muhammad against enemy forces.
They document his war against his own Quraysh tribe, the expulsion of the Bani
al-Nadir tribe, and the slaughter of the Bani Qurayza. Mercy, attributed to
Allah in the opening Al-Fatiha Koranic verse, was not included in the arsenal of
qualities or attributes of Muhammad’s Muslims. A traditional saying commands:
“Kill any Jews that fall into your power.” The Hamas Charter (Art. 8) cites the
movement’s slogan: “Allah is its target, the prophet is its model, the Koran its
constitutions, jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest
of its wishes.” In a street rally in Ramallah weeks into the Gaza War, the chant
arose: “Whoever has a rifle, shoot a Jew.”[8]
The goal of the Nazis was to kill all the Jews and cleanse Germany of any Jewish
presence. The Palestinians are unarguably their true successors and ideological
compatriots in the Middle East, fighting to cleanse Israel of all Jews.
Reflections on Gnostic Heresy
The Hamas-Nazi analogy requires a few final reflections. Four distinctive
features define the resemblance:
One: they engaged in the dehumanization of the Jews, as vermin (rats and
parasitic insects) by the Nazis, and as apes and pigs by Hamas;
Two: they had the singular and obsessive objective of killing Jews more than
even victory in war;
Three: they aspired to achieve global conquest in the name of their ideology –
Nazism and Islamism – without compromise.
Four: German Nazism emerged in the 1920s with a fervent hatred of Great Britain
and saw her as the major strategic rival, so to the Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas’
parent organization – was born in the same decade and saw Britain, with its
mandate over Palestine, its Great Power enemy. The shame of the Versailles
Treaty for Germany compared with the humiliation of the Balfour Declaration for
the Arabs.
Germans and Palestinians acted under a mysterious spell, they did things
out-of-the-ordinary in a conflictual-military context. They burnt Jews alive,
and Hamas in earlier years conjured up the holocaust “still to come upon the
Jews.”[9] A primordial force operated in such cultures dedicated to domination
but also destruction, the perpetrators never blaming themselves. They do not
countenance the possibility of error. The Nazi truth and the Hamas truth are
unassailable: the faithful ask no questions. Hitler youth in Germany and Islamic
youth in Palestine receive an education that prepared them to sacrifice, murder,
and die.[10] Anointed to rule with a mission to launch a new era, Nazism and
Islamism set forth to build a new world.
Only with such language and interpretation can we begin to grasp the violent
nightmares that these diabolical gnostic forces imposed on their Jewish victims,
and the world.[11] Hitler’s declaration of the Thousand Year Reich, and Islam’s
belief in the Coming of the Mahdi or the Day of Judgment, make possible and
permit every conceivable monstrosity.
*Dr. Mordechai Nisan taught Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
Notes:
[1] The title of a book edited by David Bukay, Muhammad’s Monsters, Green
Forest, Arkansas: Balfour Books, 2004.
[2] See my book The Crack-up of the Israeli Left, Canada: Mantua Books, 2019.
[3] Robert S. Wistrich, “Islamic Judeophobia: An Existential Threat,” in
Muhammad’s Monsters, pp. 195-219.
[4] “A Discussion with Yasser Arafat,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 42, Winter
1982, pp. 4-5.
[5] Bat Ye’or, “Dhimmi Peoples – Oppressed Nations,” in Robert Spencer, ed., The
Myth of Islamic Tolerance, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2004, chapter 6,
pp. 115-146. For most purposes, the Islamic diatribes against Jews are also
against the Christians.
[6] See William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Greenwich, Conn.:
Fawcett Pub., 1960, chapters 14-16.
[7] In Andrew G. Bostom, ed., The Legacy of Jihad, Amherst, New York: Prometheus
Books, p. 226.
[8] The source is Palestinian Media Watch, Nov. 11, 2023.
[9] Markos Zographos, Genocidal Antisemitism: A Core Ideology of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Occasional Paper Series, no. 4, 2001, Institute for the Study of
Global Antisemitism and Policy, p. 41.
[10] Rafael Medoff, “Hitler Youth in Gaza,” Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Nov.
17, 2023.
[11] See Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1952, chapter VI, on the phenomenon of gnosticism in politics.
Why Belgium, Norway, Spain and Everyone Should Refrain from
Recognizing a 'Palestinian State' Just Now
Drieu Godefridi/ Gatestone Institute./December 3, 2023
In the case of a "Palestinian State", there is no territory on which even the
Palestinians agree. Indeed, the charter of Hamas -- designated as a terrorist
organization by many countries in the West, and which has reigned unchallenged
in the Gaza Strip since 2007 when it forcibly expelled the Palestinian
Authority, in part by throwing its members off 15-storey buildings -- calls for
the "liberation" of "every inch of Palestine" through jihad.
The Palestinian Authority also lays claim over all of the territory, including
all of Israel...
In addition, the Palestinian Authority is counting on the Palestine Liberation
Organization's 1974 "Ten Point Plan" (also known as the "phased plan") for the
"comprehensive liberation" of all the land stretching "from the [Jordan] River
to the [Mediterranean] Sea" -- a euphemism for the elimination of Israel. The
plan calls for the PLO to use whatever territory it is offered as a base of
operations to get the rest.
Belgium's possible recognition of a "Palestinian State" makes no sense in terms
of international law. It comes, in reality, less as the result of a desire to
help the Palestinians -- whose lives will not be improved by it -- than of a
fierce and increasingly undisguised hostility towards the State of Israel, and
most likely also Jews.Recognizing a Palestinian state with no authority, no
realistic territorial demands and no acceptable leadership -- and with a
long-term, outspoken desire to militarize and destroy its neighbor Israel --
right after a jihadist pogrom against Jews, will not add to the happiness of any
of the parties involved, or, for that matter, anyone else.
There are whispers in the corridors of power that Belgium, like Norway and
Spain, is preparing to recognize a "Palestinian State". This move seems
questionable, on both legal and political grounds.
The first conditions for recognizing a state are territory and state authority.
International law defines a sovereign state as an established territorial unit,
within which its laws apply to a permanent population, and which is constituted
by institutions through which it exercises authority and effective power.
In the case of a "Palestinian State", there is no territory on which even the
Palestinians agree. Indeed, the charter of Hamas -- designated as a terrorist
organization by many countries in the West, and which has reigned unchallenged
in the Gaza Strip since 2007 when it forcibly expelled the Palestinian
Authority, in part by throwing its members off 15-storey buildings -- calls for
the "liberation" of "every inch of Palestine" through jihad.
The Palestinian Authority also lays claim over all of the territory, including
all of Israel (see also here, here, here and here). The territory of the
"Palestinian State" is therefore not contested at the margins; it is contested
in substance. At present, no one, and certainly not the Palestinians themselves,
can say what the boundaries of the territory they are claiming are, even
approximately, apart from the openly desired entire territory of Israel.
In addition, the Palestinian Authority is counting on the Palestine Liberation
Organization's 1974 "Ten Point Plan" (also known as the "phased plan") for the
"comprehensive liberation" of all the land stretching "from the [Jordan] River
to the [Mediterranean] Sea" -- a euphemism for the elimination of Israel. The
plan calls for the PLO to use whatever territory it is offered as a base of
operations to get the rest.
Nor is there any constituted state authority. Or rather, there are two. In Gaza,
Hamas has governed since 2007. In the Palestinian-populated areas of Judea and
Samaria, the Palestinian Authority dominates. These two authorities do not
recognize each other, so much so that they went to war. Between 2007 and 2008,
hundreds of cadres and activists were killed in clashes between Hamas and the
Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip. An estimated 600 Hamas political
prisoners are being held in Palestinian Authority jails.
So, what is this enigmatic "authority" that should be recognized? The
Palestinian Authority, which has no legitimacy, no representatives in Gaza and
is hated by a large number of its own people? Or Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza
Strip since 2007, is a terrorist organization and has just perpetrated the worst
act of mass murder against Jews since the Shoah?
Does Belgium realize that recognizing any kind of "authority" in these
conditions is tantamount to recognizing either a terrorist organization or the
Palestinian Authority, whose authority in Gaza is a pure myth, or a mixture of
the two that has no relevance on the ground?
In strict international law, it makes no sense to recognize a "Palestinian
State" that does not exist in any of its fundamental components. How can one
justify recognizing a myth such as the Palestinian State, while at the same time
as refusing to recognize a democratic "State of Taiwan," which is perfectly
constituted and has been for decades? It's all very well claiming to be governed
by international law, but it is even better to be consistent in respecting its
categories.
Another problem is that of "Palestinian refugees". It is estimated that there
are two million "Palestinian refugees" recognized as such by the United Nations
currently living in the West Bank and Gaza. The refugee issue is one of the most
sensitive in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Five million Palestinian Arabs who are
currently registered as "Palestine refugees" - the two million in the West Bank
and Gaza, plus two million in Jordan and another million in Syria and Lebanon -
are demanding to "return" to what they claim is their historic homeland.
If these five million Palestinians were to join the two million or so
Palestinian Arabs who are already citizens of Israel, there would be a massive
demographic change, as Einat Wilf points out. The Jews of Israel would likely be
relegated to minority status. This is why Israelis have always rejected the
Palestinians' claimed "right of return". Yet Palestinians insist that this is a
fundamental requirement of any peace agreement.
Recognizing a "Palestinian State" means putting an end to the myth of refugees
already living in these territories. You cannot be a refugee from Palestine and
live in a Palestinian State at the same time. If Gaza and the West Bank become
"Palestine," then the millions of Palestinians living there cease to be
refugees. Pretending to recognize a "Palestinian State" while maintaining the
myth of refugees betrays the inherently political and hostile nature of this
recognition of a phantom "Palestinian State".
Moreover, according to many commentators, there already is a Palestinian State:
it is called Jordan.
Which brings us to the heart of the matter: Belgium's possible recognition of a
"Palestinian State" makes no sense in terms of international law. It comes, in
reality, less as the result of a desire to help the Palestinians -- whose lives
will not be improved by it -- than of a fierce and increasingly undisguised
hostility towards the State of Israel, and most likely also Jews.
Belgium, Norway and Spain would do well to come to their senses. Recognizing a
Palestinian state with no authority, no realistic territorial demands and no
acceptable leadership -- and with a long-term, outspoken desire to militarize
and destroy its neighbor Israel -- right after a jihadist pogrom against Jews,
will not add to the happiness of any of the parties involved, or, for that
matter, anyone else.
*Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain),
philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal
theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private
education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green
Reich (2020).
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Gaza and the Double Standards
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 03/2023
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza, following the Oct. 7 operation,
we have been hearing the expression, “double standards” by all Arab countries
and their officials. I do not think there is another term that has been used
more frequently throughout this war.
This expression is often used to criticize the West, and the United States in
particular, but does this criticism only apply to them? My conviction is no. The
truth is that our region also suffers from “double standards,” whether in
dealing with Israel or Hamas... How? Here is the answer...
Since the outbreak of the war, we have not heard an Arab voice telling Hamas:
Enough of the adventures... solutions must be found to stop the bloodshed of the
people of Gaza, and that there is a real danger to Gaza, geographically, and to
the security of Jordan and Egypt.
No Arab official, in any hint or statement, has told Ismail Haniyeh following
his calls for a ceasefire and the initiation of a two-state solution: If you
truly believe in that, then why create unequal or unjustified wars, because that
would also be a double standard?
None of them told Hamas: How can you go to war without preparing to protect the
innocent, provide the slightest basics they need, and at least take care of the
people of Gaza, as you did with the young Israeli woman, Maya, or the other
woman who escaped captivity with her dog?
We have not heard from the Arabs anyone saying, or leaking to the media, that
some countries in the region that have relations with Israel must stop bidding,
and stop their electronic armies’ campaigns through social media to “demonize”
some Arab countries!
We have not heard criticism of the sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood in our
region, whether by establishing misleading electronic armies’ websites, as some
have the right to communicate with Israel and its leaders, while incitement and
provocation are being directed against Arab countries that do what serves their
national interests.
Aside from the Gaza story, but within the time frame, we did not hear from the
Arabs anyone telling the regime in Syria, in a hint or a statement, to stop
killing and targeting civilians, and proceed with a political solution to end
the bloodshed.
No one told the Lebanese government that just as you condemn the killing of
journalists whose lives Hezbollah risks, stop the party’s targeting of
journalists who disagree with it, because that is also a double standard.
We did not hear anyone directing criticism at the combatants in Sudan, and
calling things by their names, in order to stop the bloodshed and preserve what
is left of the country, if there is anything left of it at all.
Yes, the West, led by Washington, has double standards. Indeed, Washington is
the official purveyor of double standards internationally, in a blatant and
provocative manner, but we also have our problems.
It is inconceivable that this brutal war in Gaza will continue without Hamas
bearing responsibility. Campaigns of treason and moral assassination cannot
continue with the support of parties in our region that deliberately practice
double standards.
Israel is a criminal, but we should not also criminalize ourselves and the
innocent by running forward. No one will fight on behalf of Gaza, neither Iran
nor Hezbollah, and therefore we must say enough killing and destruction.
This situation must be defused by saying what needs to be said.
Israel faces new front in Iran’s drone war
Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/December 03/2023
Since the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing military campaign in Gaza,
Israel has found itself the target of missiles and drones fired by
Iranian-backed groups from various points in the Middle East. While there has
not been a full-scale escalation from groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the
attacks, many of which have been intercepted, have served as a warning of what
Israel’s enemies in the region have at their disposal. One particular incident
marked a notable departure from previous attacks on Israel and will be causing
increased concern for the country’s security officials. On November 9, a drone
launched from Syria struck a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. The
drone managed to hit a target more than 400 kilometres away from the nearest
Syrian territory. Previous attacks on Israel from Syria have typically involved
mortar shelling across the border confined to unpopulated areas.
Beyond its remarkable long-distance reach, the drone’s capacity to fly
undetected and execute a precise strike suggests the involvement of a
well-trained operator. The message conveyed by the attack is equally noteworthy;
it demonstrates the capability to target any location in Israel from Syria.
Eilat is Israel’s southernmost city and its only port on the country’s sliver of
Red Sea coastline. The questions that loom large are: who was responsible for
the attack? and how did they manage to reach the target without triggering
alarms from Israel’s sophisticated defence systems?
The Israeli military said the drone crashed into the school while about 40
students were in the basement. No serious injuries were reported.
The next day, the Israeli army said it had responded by targeting the
organisation in Syria responsible for launching the drone. However, the
statement did not identity the group, and failed to give details about the
target.
Initially, there were suspicions that the attack originated in Yemen, after
several recent attempted strikes on Israel carried out by the Iran-backed
Houthis. Examinations of the drone fragments indicated that it was most likely
an Iranian-made Shahed-101 or a similar model. The Shahed-101 boasts a range of
up to 700 kilometres. Given that the distance from the Yemeni border to Eilat is
nearly 2,000 kilometres, it became clear that the drone must have been launched
from a location closer to Israel.
Two primary theories continue to circulate regarding the launch location and who
was operating the drone. The prevailing assumption is that the drone was
launched from southern Syria by Hezbollah, or a group linked to it, which has
had a large presence there since the Lebanese group backed Bashar Al Assad in
the Syrian civil war.
Hezbollah announced that seven of its fighters were killed on the day of the
Eilat drone attack, without disclosing the location of their deaths. However,
reports citing a Hezbollah official, among others, acknowledging that they were
killed in Syria, added to suspicions that the seven died in Israel’s retaliatory
airstrike. If these reports prove accurate, it would tie in with Israeli
concerns over Hezbollah’s drone capacity and substantial influence in southern
Syria. The absence of official acknowledgment from either party may stem from a
shared interest in preventing further escalations.
However, there is a second theory as to who was responsible. Israeli news
website Walla identified the elite Iranian-backed Imam Hussein Division as
responsible for the attack. The group, also known as the Imam Hussein Brigades,
was established by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria in 2016 and
armed with Iranian-made drones and surface-to-surface and surface-to-air
missiles. The media outlet, however, did not specify from where the attack
originated. Military experts told this writer that while southern Syria remains
a potential location, northeast Syria, Imam Hussein’s stronghold, is considered
a more likely launching point. The considerable distance of northeast Syria from
the border with Israel renders it a more strategic launch spot for the drone
compared to the southern part of Syria, which is subject to closer monitoring by
Israel.
Regardless of which account of the November 9 attack is more accurate, both
suggest the potential for drone strikes from different parts of Syria. The
trajectory of the drone is an equally crucial detail. All reports say the drone
approached Eilat from the direction of Jordan, covering hundreds of kilometres
across the kingdom’s airspace.
The same military experts said the choice of Jordanian airspace for the drone’s
path was because Israel sees its border with Jordan as relatively low risk.
Consequently, Tel Aviv directs its sensors, radars and patrol aircraft to
regions where the risk of attacks is deemed higher, such as southern Syria. The
rugged terrain along the Jordan-Israel border near Eilat adds complexity to
drone detection and provides cover for the devices approaching from a distance
at low altitudes.
Moreover, the drone’s distinctive features facilitated its discreet flight to
the target without triggering Israel’s alarms. It flies at slow speed, low
altitude, can be programmed to deviate from a straight path and has a compact
size.
Amid the conflict in Gaza, the drone attack from Syria is unlikely to be the
last. The Israeli military is expected to bolster security measures along the
Jordanian border. However, the technical challenges, Israel’s engagement on
various fronts and the capability of Iranian-backed groups to deploy multiple
and more advanced drones diminish the likelihood of Israel completely
neutralising the threat. Hence, a diplomatic resolution for Gaza is the sole
guaranteed means to prevent further escalation against Israel, domestically and
regionally.