Wednesday, October 29, 2025

‘𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠’: 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐔𝐍 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐬𝐬

Aljazeera, 29 Oct 2025
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk has denounced Israel’s attack on Gaza and called on the international community to not waste this “opportunity for peace and a path towards a more just and secure future”.

“Reports that over 100 Palestinians were killed overnight in a wave of Israeli air strikes – mainly on residential buildings, IDP tents and schools across the Gaza Strip following the death of an Israeli soldier – are appalling,” he said in a statement.

“The laws of war are very clear on the paramount importance of protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Turk urged Israel to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law and to be held accountable for any violations.

“It is distressing that these killings occurred just as the long-suffering population of Gaza started to feel there was hope that the unrelenting barrage of violence may be at an end,” he said.

Turk also called on all parties to the war to act in good faith and implement the ceasefire.

 

Palestinian doctor from Gaza detained by Israeli authorities

In the early hours of December 28, 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya was arrested by Israeli forces during a military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital. He was forcibly disappeared, subjected to torture, and detained without charges under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law. On October 16, 2025, Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention order was extended again for six months. Despite global calls by the UN and human rights organisations for his release, he remains arbitrarily detained.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a paediatrician, lead physician at MedGlobal, and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. Dr. Abu Safiya also used his social media to share updates on Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and provide critical information on the assistance and material needed for the hospital to continue operating, to ensure medical care can be provided to his patients.

On the morning of December 27, 2024, Israeli military forces launched a military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which forced the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza out of service. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was summoned by the Israeli military, forced to evacuate most of his patients and staff, and arrested during the early hours of December 28.

For 45 days, Dr. Abu Safiya was held incommunicado, with no contact with his family or his legal counsel. When human rights organisation Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI) submitted an inquiry on January 2, 2025, the military denied of any record of his arrest. It was only three days later that they confirmed he was in fact in their custody, while still refusing to disclose his location. 

On February 11, 2025, Dr. Abu Safiya was finally permitted a first visit from his lawyer, affiliated with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan), at Ofer Prison.

During the visit, Dr. Abu Safiya described the psychological and physical torture be had been subjected to at the hands of Israeli authorities: he was stripped naked, shackled, beaten with batons, and forced to sit on gravel for hours. He endured prolonged interrogations lasting up to 13 consecutive days, electric shocks, chest blows, and threats involving family members. He lost 12 kilograms in less than two months, and was denied necessary medical care. 

On February 12, 2025, the Commander of the Southern Command of the Israeli army issued an order to detain Dr. Abu Safiya as an “unlawful combatant” under the Unlawful Combatants Law. The following day, on February 13, 2025, the order was delivered to the Ashkelon Court and Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer. A hearing scheduled for that same day to consider the extension of Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention was cancelled after authorities invoked the Unlawful Combatants Law. 

Previously, on January 9, 2025, the Magistrates’ Court of Ashkelon had extended Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention based on suspicions that he had committed offenses under the Israeli Penal Code. However, due to the prosecution’s failure to gather sufficient evidence to support an indictment, as required by the Israeli Criminal Procedure Law of 1996, Israeli authorities reverted to detaining him under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

According to his lawyers, Israeli authorities attempted to reclassify the matter as a criminal case to pursue a formal indictment. However, following a series of interrogations and episodes of severe torture intended to coerce Dr. Abu Safiya into confessions for use in court, Israeli authorities were still unable to establish any grounds for prosecution after more than 45 days in custody. As a result, his case was ultimately returned to its original classification under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

On March 20, 2025, one of Abu Safiya’s lawyers was granted a 17-minute visit in Ofer Prison. During the visit, Dr. Abu Safiya reportedly held that he had been severely beaten six times since the previous meeting with his lawyers 10 days prior. He reported that four of his ribs had been broken, that he suffered injuries to his eyes, including clearly visible bruising, and that he had been denied glasses for his poor eyesight. Regarding the conditions of detention, very little food was available to Dr. Abu Safiya and other detainees, the bathroom was only made available for one hour a week and for one minute per detainee, and there was only one towel for every five detainees. 

On March 25, 2025, the Be’er Sheva (or Bir al-Sabi’) District Court, an Israeli civil court, reviewed and upheld the detention order issued on February 12, 2025 by the Commander of the Southern Command of the Israeli army against Dr. Abu Safiya, upholding his detention for another six months. 

During the hearing, the Southern District Prosecutor submitted a secret file to the court, alleging that Dr. Abu Safiya poses a threat to the security of the State of Israel and has engaged in “hostile” activities. In response, Dr. Abu Safiya’s legal team asserted his innocence and held that he was solely performing medical and administrative duties at Kamal Adwan Hospital. The defence also requested access to the classified investigation materials; however, the prosecution refused, and the court upheld the refusal.

On April 30, 2025, MENA Rights Group petitioned the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, urging them to rule his detention as arbitrary under international law, and to call on Israeli authorities to release him immediately.

On October 16, 2025, the Be’er Sheva (or Bir al-Sabi’) District Court extended the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya for an additional six months. Dr. Abu Safiya's legal counsel attended the hearing in-person and challenged the lawfulness of his detention, noting the absence of any incriminating evidence and the lack of any formal charges against him. Dr. Abu Safiya joined the hearing via video call from his place of detention, in Ofer Prison.

Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention has been condemned by UN human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967,  the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, among others.

The Unlawful Combatants Law strips Palestinian detainees of their rights protected under international law, and allows for their indefinite detention, without charge or trial. The text allows Israeli authorities to detain Palestinians on suspicions of being an “unlawful combatant”, which carries no legal status under international humanitarian law, on the basis of “secret evidence”, which neither the defence nor their lawyers have the right to access or challenge. The Israeli military is not required to issue a detention order for the first 45 days of detention, and detainees are denied access to a lawyer for up to 90 days.

Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have relied on the Unlawful Combatants Law to detain thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of healthcare workers like Dr. Abu Safiya. Israel’s targeting of medical facilities and health care workers contributes to the decimation and collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system, which is a component of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

As Israel devours the West Bank, Abbas rearranges the chairs on the deck of the Titanic

 

 
If Marwan Barghouti, or someone like him, does not assume control of Fatah very soon, Abbas will drag his party and every Palestinian institution down with him
 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas walks on Downing Street to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in London, England, on 8 September 2025 (Reuters)

Nothing reveals the true nature of Zionism more clearly than the annual attacks of Israeli settlers during the olive harvest in the West Bank.

This year, they are particularly frenzied.

After two years of a genocidal war in Gaza, the brakes have truly come off their attempt to purge the countryside of its native population.

Almost as much as the Palestinian flag, the olive tree represents the symbol of ownership that one Palestinian generation hands down to another, and Israelis of all tribes are determined to erase it.

Afaf Abu Alia, a 53-year-old Palestinian mother who was beaten on the head in turns by Israeli settlers, said: "When they cut our olive trees, it felt like they were gouging out our eyes. The olive tree is so precious to us - like our own children."

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The pogroms against the Palestinians are pure ethnic aggression, designed solely to force them off their land. No "friend of Israel" can pretend otherwise.

There is nothing remotely "defensive" about this operation. Lynch mobs of settlers are on a manhunt for Palestinian prey. 

This is how much of a myth Israel perpetrates when it claims to offer Jewish victims of antisemitism a safe haven. Nor can they claim that this naked aggression against unarmed Palestinians is the work of a fringe group of settlers and that the rest of Israel wants to live in peace with its Arabs.

The burning of cars, the beatings and the killings are a collective effort, and key to the concurrent legislative push for annexation.

No opposition to annexation

Apart from the settlers, and citizens who turn up with metal bars, there are soldiers who fire teargas and shoot at their victims; the border police who arrest the victims of the settlers and stop ambulances from recovering the bodies; the Shin Bet, as well as the Israeli prisons service, settlement security coordinators, the Israeli military liaison office, the courts, and of course, last week, the Knesset itself.

Amid Gaza's nightmare, a quiet genocide has been unfolding in the West Bank
Read More »

The parliament passed a preliminary reading of two bills. The first applied Israeli sovereignty to all the settlements in the occupied West Bank. This was opposed by the ruling Likud party, although one member, Yuli Edelstein, broke ranks to cast the decisive vote.

Edelstein said that he supported the measure because "Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our homeland is the order of the day" and called on "all Zionist factions to vote in favour".

The other was a more limited bill proposed by the secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman to annex the large settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, arguing the surest form of devouring the occupied West Bank was in salami slices.

"Ma'ale Adumim constitutes the broadest consensus in Israeli society. In terms of applying sovereignty, it is better to go for the broadest national consensus[such as] Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley."

This bill, everyone in Europe and the US please note, got the support of the so-called opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.

There is in fact no opposition to annexation. It enjoys bipartisan support.

Senior members of the cabinet, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz, have also endorsed annexation. Last summer, the Knesset overwhelmingly approved a non-binding motion in favour of applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

Even the statement from the Likud party, which dismissed the two bills as political trolling designed to embarrass the government on the day US Vice President JD Vance was in town, blurted out what was really going on.

"We strengthen settlement every day with actions, budgets, construction, industry, and not with words. True sovereignty will be achieved by... creating the political conditions appropriate for the recognition of our sovereignty, as was done in the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem."

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and de facto colonial governor of the West Bank, was unfazed by US President Donald Trump's rejection of annexation. 

Trump had warned that Israel would lose the support of the US "completely" if it annexed the West Bank, and it "would not happen" as it would break the commitments he gave to Arab leaders.

Smotrich, who should no longer be considered a religious Zionist outlier or extremist, but the voice of the driving force of Israeli politics, said it was only a matter of time before Trump would come around, just as he did by recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

A bitter harvest

It's only the start of this year's olive harvest, which continues until December, but already the pogroms have had a dramatic effect.

With or without Likud denials or Trump's threats, the Smotrich plan is firmly underway. Possibly not at the speed with which he wants it carried out, but the destination can no longer be in doubt

The Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission documented 158 settler attacks since the start of the olive harvest, which runs from October to late December, carried out under the protection of the Israeli army.

Palestine usually produces between 17,000 and 22,000 tonnes of olives, but this season it is expected to fall to just 7,000 tonnes, the lowest in decades.

Since the start of the year, 10,000 trees have been burned or uprooted, on which roughly half of the Palestinian population depend. But it's the land the trees are on which are Smotrich's real target.

Key to his plan to annex 82 percent of the occupied West Bank is the principle of "the maximum land with the minimum Arabs".

The pogroms have already cleared Palestinians off one-fifth of the land they still cling to. 

Olive trees cover some 550,000 dunams (around 136,000 acres) of farmland out of a total of 1.2 million dunams. In the past two years, Israeli army and settler violence have prevented farmers from accessing 110,000 dunams of their land.

So with or without Likud denials or Trump's threats, the Smotrich plan is firmly underway. Possibly not at the speed with which he wants it carried out, but the destination can no longer be in doubt.

Abbas succession 

If you are sitting in Ramallah, Smotrich represents an existential threat to whoever takes over from the ageing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although this is no longer in any doubt after the decree he issued on Sunday.

Responding to speculation that Abbas's arch Fatah rival, Marwan Barghouti, might be let out of Israeli prison after over 20 years, and that Trump was seriously considering pleas from Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, Abbas issued a decree which shuts the door on any rival or indeed any election.

Who is Marwan Barghouti and why won't Israel release him?
Read More »

The decree stated that if he could no longer fulfil his duties as president, the position would be filled "temporarily" - always a suspicious word in the Middle East - by Hussein al-Sheikh, the deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee.

Sheikh, who is Israel's primary contact over civilian matters in the West Bank, has been vetted and approved by both Tel Aviv and Washington.

At the last available poll, only 18.9 percent of Palestinians supported his appointment as vice chairman. In a straight context, Sheikh would be blown away by Barghouti.

But polls are irrelevant to the president, who has not allowed an election to take place for 21 years and who has shut down the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which has been dormant, after the last vote in 2006 gave Hamas 74 of the 132 seats, while the ruling Fatah got just 45.

Abbas's closure of parliament is another reason for Sunday's decree. Basic Law decrees that an incapacitated president is supposed to be replaced by the speaker of the Legislative Council.

Now he is not. 

All this is business as usual for Abbas. It is as if the genocide in Gaza never took place, and an existential attack on the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not happening either.

The PA responded to the genocide in Gaza with silence. It is pursuing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

But Israel's attempt to exterminate Gaza has not even produced a dent in Abbas's policy of excluding Hamas from a unity government of any form. On the contrary, it has only confirmed it. 

Other Fatah grandees who appear at international gatherings are careful to accompany declarations that Hamas must be disarmed in Gaza with carefully worded acknowledgements that it must, at some level, be involved in the process of finding a new leader. 

Like Netanyahu, whose proudest lifetime achievement has been to kill a Palestinian State at birth, Abbas's proudest boast has been to cling to power, 21 years after he effectively lost it 

But not Abbas, who clearly thinks the resistance groups are a bigger threat to his authority than Israel currently is.

Like Netanyahu, whose proudest lifetime achievement has been to kill a Palestinian state at birth, Abbas's proudest boast has been to cling to power, 21 years after he effectively lost it. 

The contradictions between marginalising Hamas, reforming the PA to be even more subservient to Israel and its occupation than it already is, and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state on the borders of 1967, are fully contained in the internal Saudi foreign ministry report, which was leaked to Middle East Eye.

Saudi Arabia said Hamas has an "impact on obstructing peace efforts and deepening divisions" and therefore should be sidelined.

Written in Arabic, this paper was presumably for distribution to fellow Arab delegates at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Smotrich laughed at Saudi Arabia's attempts to bargain normalisation for a Palestinian state. "Keep riding your camels in the Saudi desert. We'll continue to develop our economy, society and state with all the great things we know how to do."

What next?

Barghouti himself remains an unknown factor. Whether he still retains the power he once had to lead both the Palestinian national liberation struggle and make Israel take him seriously as a negotiator remains to be seen, if he is ever released. 

The Future of the Occupation: What now for Palestine after Gaza?
Read More »

In the past, Israel has simply assassinated leaders like Yasser Arafat - widely assumed today to have been poisoned - who tried and failed to do both.

There is every reason why Israel would assassinate Barghouti in or out of prison, if he ever became a serious challenger for power in Ramallah. 

But if Barghouti, or someone like him, does not assume control of Fatah very soon, Abbas will drag his party and every Palestinian institution - the PA, the PLC and the PLO - down with him. Is this very real prospect really in the interests of those in Fatah who are currently keeping their heads down?

Hamas and the resistance groups have every chance of outliving Abbas and continuing in Gaza, in the West Bank and the diaspora.

All that is left for Abbas to do is to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Even he has to see that.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was the Guardian's foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

US Army Colonel Found the IDF Intentionally Killed Palestinian American Journalist in 2022

 Despite the findings, the Biden administration claimed the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was unintentional

A retired US Army colonel who was involved in the investigation into the Israeli military killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has revealed that he found the shooting was intentional shortly after she was killed.

Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera reporter and a Christian, was killed by the Israeli military while reporting on an IDF raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022. She was shot in the head while wearing a vest clearly marked with the word “PRESS.”

“My findings were beyond a reasonable doubt that this was an intentional killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,” Col. Steve Gabavics told Zeteo reporter Mehdi Hasan. Gabavics affirmed that he came to the conclusion within 10 days of Abu Akleh’s killing.

People light candles during a vigil in memory of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli raid, outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

Despite Gabavics’ findings, the Biden administration’s State Department claimed in a statement issued on July 4, 2022, that the shooting was unintentional and the result of “tragic circumstances.”

Gabavics told Hasan that his boss at the time, Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel, who led the US Security Coordinator liaison office for Israel, took the word of an Israeli general over his findings. Gabavics said that Gen. Yehuda Fox, the head of Israel’s Central Command at the time, told Fenzel that an Israeli soldier may have killed Abu Akleh, but that it was an “accident, that it was a matter of tragic circumstances,” the same language used in the Biden administration’s statement.

“So the US general takes the word of a foreign general over his own officer, who he sent to investigate?” Hasan asked Gabavics, to which he answered in the affirmative.

Gabovics at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2018 (National Guard photo by Sgt. Amber Peck)

Gabavics first shared his story as an anonymous source for a Zeteo documentary titled “Who Killed Shireen?” He revealed his identity in an interview with The New York Times on Monday and said he came forward because of his frustration with the case.

The retired US colonel, who was a career military policeman and served 30 years, told the Times that he and his colleagues were “flabbergasted” by the Biden administration’s statement on Abu Akhleh’s killing and the fact that the State Department avoided calling it intentional “continued to be on my conscience nonstop.”

“The favoritism is always toward the Israelis. Very little of that goes to the Palestinians,” Gabavics said.

Monday, October 27, 2025

My Home, My Home!

 

My Home, My Home!






My Home, My Home!
New York       Cesar Chelala
My home, I want to come back to my home
I don’t care how broken it stands;
I just want a single wall 
and I will rebuild it, says the old man,
a grandfather of three sons, five grandchildren
“I want to restart my family,” he pleads
--he doesn’t know, he cannot know—
that both his house and his family 
no longer exist.
He sits by the roadside, 
on a rock beneath a silent sky,
and weeps. 
Exhausted, he curls into sleep,
a small bag --all his belongings-- 
clutched to his chest.
Yet he is a man of resolve.
He will go back and start all over again,
but he will have to do it alone,
the last survivor
of a vanished home.
So many dreams crushed,
so many lives that are no more.
 
Cesar
Chelala, a New York writer, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of
America award, and two national journalism awards from Argentina. 
Illustration by Paola Bilancieri 

Saturday, October 25, 2025

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐨 𝐑𝐮𝐛𝐢𝐨 𝐈𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐔𝐒 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐨 𝐀𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 ‘𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐢-𝐒𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠’

According to Haaretz, the US expects to be notified before Israel launches any major airstrikes in Gaza

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, October 23, 2025 at 8:47 pm ET

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel on Thursday, making him the fourth Trump administration official to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week and push for Israel to comply with the Gaza ceasefire deal, which Israeli media is referring to as “Bibi-sitting.”

“[T]he President has made this a top priority, I think as evidenced by the fact that both Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were here for much of the week … and the Vice President just left,” Rubio told reporters after meeting with Netanyahu.

“I’m here now today because this is a priority. It’s a very important achievement, but there’s more work to be done and bigger achievements that lie ahead. And so we’re here to work on that, and we feel very positive and confident that we’re going to get there despite substantial obstacles,” he added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their meeting at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, October 23, 2025. Fadel Senna/Pool via REUTERS

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that, according to several Trump officials, there is concern within the administration that Netanyahu may quit the ceasefire deal and that the strategy is for senior US officials to prevent him from restarting the full-scale bombing campaign in Gaza.

Israel has been violating the deal by not allowing a sufficient number of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and it has continued attacks on Palestinians, killing at least 89 since the ceasefire went into effect, including one over the past day, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The US appears to be tolerating the current situation but wants to prevent Israel from launching major airstrikes on Gaza, like the attacks that were seen this past Sunday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday that the US expects to be notified in advance before the IDF “conducts any exceptional military strikes in the Gaza Strip, including airstrikes.”

The report said: “Israeli defense sources say that the Americans are not yet presenting this as a demand for a green light from them before any military action. But, in practice, they are making it very clear that they will not tolerate any more Israeli surprises that would jeopardize the cease-fire.”

Thursday, October 23, 2025

Gaza truce plan insufficient against 'genocide': UN's Albanese

 Johannesburg (AFP) – UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Wednesday criticised a US-brokered ceasefire plan in Gaza as insufficient to address what she called a "genocide" of the Palestinian people by the United States and Israel.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was in South Africa ahead of her delivery of the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was in South Africa ahead of her delivery of the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture © WIKUS DE WET / AFP

A fragile truce is in place as part of a deal to end two years of the Israel-Hamas war, which also involves the recovery of hostages, delivery of more aid to Gaza and eventual rebuilding of the devastated Palestinian territory.

The plan is "absolutely inadequate and it doesn't comply with international law", said Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

There needed to be commitment to "ending the occupation, ending exploitation of Palestinian resources, ending colonisation", Albanese told reporters.

Israeli troops currently control around half of the coastal Palestinian territory.

"It's not a war, it's a genocide where there is a determination to destroy a people as such," said Albanese, who is mandated by the United Nations but does not speak on its behalf.

UN investigators and several human rights groups, among them Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza,

Israel has denied that charge as "distorted and false", while accusing the authors of antisemitism.

'Genocidal apartheid state'

Albanese was in South Africa -- which has laid a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice -- to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture on October 25.

Under US sanctions since July for her outspoken criticism of Israel, she will also present her next report to the United Nations from South Africa in the coming days.

In a first version of that report, published on the UN website, Albanese calls the Western support for Israel during the war with Hamas "the culmination of a long history of complicity".

"Even as the genocidal violence became visible, states, mostly Western ones, have provided, and continue to provide, Israel with military, diplomatic, economic and ideological support," Albanese wrote.

For helping Israel, which she brands a "genocidal apartheid state", the UN rapporteur argues allied countries "could and should be held liable for aiding, assisting or jointly participating in internationally wrongful acts".

"The United States and Israel are leading not just the genocide in Gaza," Albanese told Wednesday's press conference.

"They are leading to the erosion, the collapse of the multilateral system, threatening everyone who tries to advance justice and accountability," she charged, mentioning four ICC judges also under US sanctions.

Renewed discussions over the past months about a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict have "been a pretence of doing something while the emergency was to discuss ... how we stop the genocide", she said.

Those "who still have ties with Israel, diplomatic, but especially economic, political and military ties, are all responsible in some measure", she said.

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐓𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐬

 

According to a report from The New York Times, the opposite is true, as regional countries are hesitant to send a peacekeeping force into Gaza

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, October 21, 2025 at 6:22 pm ET

President Trump claimed on Tuesday that many of the US’s allies in the Middle East are willing to send a force into Gaza to fight Hamas, a claim that came as The New York Times reported that regional countries are hesitant to be part of a peacekeeping force in Gaza over fears of potential clashes with Hamas.

“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and “straighten our Hamas” if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

While Trump claims Hamas has been violating the ceasefire, he has been silent on Israeli violations, which include continued attacks in Gaza and restrictions on aid entering the Strip.
President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders’ summit on ending the Gaza war in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, October 13, 2025. Yoan Valat/Pool via REUTERS

“The love and spirit for the Middle East has not been seen like this in a thousand years! It is a beautiful thing to behold! I told these countries, and Israel, “NOT YET!” There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!” Trump said in his post.

The president didn’t mention any countries that were willing to send troops to fight Hamas, but thanked Indonesia in his post for its willingness to be involved in the ceasefire process. “Also, I would like to thank the great and powerful country of Indonesia, and its wonderful leader, for all of the help they have shown and given to the Middle East, and to the U.S.A. TO EVERYONE, thank you for your attention to this matter!” he said.

The New York Times report said that representatives of countries that are expected to be a part of a future peacekeeping force in Gaza have said privately that they will not commit troops until there is more clarity on what they’re expected to do. Their main concern is that they don’t want their troops to be expected to fight Hamas on Israel’s behalf.

The Times report said that recent discussions on the potential for deploying troops to Gaza have included Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. Israel has expressed opposition to the idea of a Turkish presence. Vice President JD Vance was asked about Israel’s position on the potential of Turkish troops being sent to Gaza and said the US wouldn’t “force” anything on Israel.

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝟏𝟓𝟑 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚, 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥

 At least 44 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza on Sunday despite ceasefire

Abdelraouf Arnaout, Rania Abu Shamala, AA. com, 20.10.2025

Israeli premier says 153 tons of bombs dropped on Gaza, admits breach of ceasefire deal Israel begins a series of attacks across Gaza despite the ceasefire, and thick smoke rises from the eastern part of Khan Yunis, Gaza, following the attacks, on October 19, 2025.

JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted Monday that his army struck the Gaza Strip on Sunday with 153 tons of bombs, in what amounts to an admission of violating a ceasefire agreement.

Speaking at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Netanyahu faced repeated interruptions from opposition lawmakers protesting his government’s policies and its deliberate prolonging of the Israeli war in Gaza.

“During the ceasefire, two soldiers fell… We struck them with 153 tons of bombs and attacked dozens of targets across the Gaza Strip,” he said.

The Gaza government media office reported 80 Israeli ceasefire violations since the US-sponsored agreement came into effect on Oct. 10, resulting in 97 Palestinians killed, including 44 on Sunday alone, and 230 others injured.

Tel Aviv alleged that Hamas had attacked its forces in the southern city of Rafah. The Palestinian group has denied any involvement and reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire deal was announced on Oct. 10, based on a phased plan presented by US President Donald Trump. Phase one included the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

Since October 2023, the Israeli genocidal war has killed over 68,200 people and injured more than 170,200, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Friday, October 17, 2025

𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕠𝕓𝕖𝕝 ℙ𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕖 ℙ𝕣𝕚𝕫𝕖 𝕓𝕪 🇮🇪𝕀𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕙 𝕡𝕠𝕖𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕄𝕦𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕒𝕟

Oh what a surprise,
Goes to María Corina Machado
A supporter of Trump and Bolsonaro,
A woman who supports Netanyahu
A wanted war criminal.
What’s wrong with this Norwegian team,
It seems they don’t know what “Peace” means!

Why was Francesca Albanese overlooked,
A woman the world can’t corrupt.
She has tirelessly worked to show the truth to the world,
But in Norway, has her voice been heard?

Or maybe Greta Thunberg? Who twice has sailed with humanitarian aid.
This young woman is so brave.
A warrior for peace and justice
For the climate and for humanity,
that the committee failed to see!

I wonder if they discussed Ms. Rachel?
So gentle and mild,
has shown love to every child.
Another woman who seems more worthy,
was she discussed by the committee?

Bisan Owda, a brave journalist,
How did the committee miss?
Is it because she’s Palestinian,
That she isn’t winnin’?

The prize could have been given to all the Gazan journalists!
Did they even make the final list?
Or the Global Sumud Flotilla, who bravely sailed,
A humanitarian mission, that sadly failed,
To arrive on Gaza’s shores,
By the Committee were they ignored?

Or how about the Doctors, the nurses and medical workers
In Gaza working day and night.
Has the committee seen their plight?
Or were they afraid of being called antisemitic?
If workers in Gaza were to get it?

When one thing is clear, these 5 Norwegians aren’t a Peace committee,
They are just part of the Western Hegemony.
The Nobel Peace Prize has become a joke,
They might as well have given it to the orange bloke!
-
-- From: tassydahlan

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Hostages, captives, prisoners: Western media still privileges Israeli over Palestinian lives

 

 
Mainstream coverage of the Israel-Hamas captives exchange exposes western media's enduring pro-Israel bias, as Israelis are humanised while Palestinians are erased from view
 
 
A Palestinian prisoner released in the Israel-Hamas captives exchange is embraced by a relative upon arrival at the Ramallah Cultural Centre in the occupied West Bank, 13 October 2025 (Zain Jaafar/AFP)
A Palestinian captive released in the Israel-Hamas captives exchange is embraced by a relative upon arrival at the Ramallah Cultural Centre in the occupied West Bank, 13 October 2025 (Zain Jaafar/AFP)

On Monday, Israel and Hamas exchanged captives as part of US President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan.

Mainstream western media coverage of the exchange reflected the same pro-Israel bias that has long characterised reporting on Israel and Palestine, which privileges Israeli lives over Palestinian ones.

Major outlets such as the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Reuters, Deutsche Welle and Agence France-Presse foregrounded Israeli captives, both living and dead, while largely downplaying the experiences of Palestinians.

Across newspapers, television broadcasts, websites and social media, Israeli captives and their families received far more attention - and were humanised through personal details and emotional imagery - than Palestinians.

For instance, seven out of eight AFP tweets on the exchange focused exclusively on Israeli captives. Reuters published a 36-photo gallery in which 26 images featured Israeli hostages, their families or ordinary citizens celebrating, while only nine depicted Palestinians.

While the BBC website ran several stories about the exchange, including some on Palestinian captives and their families, it also published a detailed and sympathetic profile of the 20 released Israeli hostages titled "Who are the released hostages?" - with no equivalent feature on Palestinians.

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CNN reported on the release of Palestinian "prisoners" and included some humanising details, but the headline for its main story, "Hostage families reunited as Trump is cheered in Israeli parliament", mentioned only Israelis.

Likewise, the Washington Post's list of six "key developments" began with Trump's speech, the Gaza war and the Sharm el-Sheikh summit. The following two bullet points focused on Israeli captives, both living and dead, while only the final point mentioned Palestinians. 

The Post offered some degree of humanisation for Palestinians, but the pro-Israel imbalance remained apparent.

Unequal attention

Since Trump announced his plan two weeks ago, western coverage has focused heavily on Hamas's requirement to release the remains of 28 dead Israeli captives. 

Much less attention has been devoted to Israel's obligation, under Article 5 of the plan, to return the remains of 420 Palestinians it has long withheld.

News database searches show extensive focus on Israeli bodies and virtually no mention of Palestinian remains

That imbalance continued on Monday. News database searches show extensive focus on Israeli bodies and virtually no mention of Palestinian remains.

This striking double standard reflects deeper problems in western reporting, which routinely ignores and downplays Israeli human rights violations.

According to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, Israel has a "long-standing practice" of withholding Palestinian bodies to use "as bargaining chips" in negotiations. Israeli counter-terrorism laws allow the government to withhold the bodies of deceased Palestinians and restrict their funerals.

More than 600 Palestinian bodies are currently held by Israel - a reality western media rarely acknowledge.

Linguistic double standard

Western outlets almost universally refer to Israeli captives as "hostages", a usage defensible under international law since those taken by Hamas meet the conventional legal definition of hostage-taking.

The question, however, is why Palestinians taken captive by Israel are not described in the same way.


Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's genocide in Gaza


After 7 October 2023, Israel detained more than 1,700 civilians from Gaza, including many women and children, who had no role in the attacks. They have been held without charge for nearly two years.

Given Israel's clear intent to use these detainees as bargaining chips in negotiations, they too arguably meet the definition of hostages under international law. Western media outlets nonetheless continue to label them only as "detainees" or "prisoners", reflecting a persistent linguistic double standard that shapes perceptions of innocence, guilt, and suffering.

Trump's 20-point plan for 'peace' is a call for Palestinian surrender
Read More »

Academic research has long documented this pattern, in which western outlets reserve the harshest descriptors for Palestinian actions while softening those applied to Israel.

Decades of studies also show that western coverage of Israel and Palestine often omits crucial context, especially concerning Israeli violations. Monday's reporting on the captive exchange was no exception.

My review found little mention of Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, the ongoing blockade of Gaza, or the genocide allegations against Israel. Where context was included, it often focused on the 7 October Hamas attacks.

A particularly revealing omission in western coverage of the captives' exchange was that Palestinians were explicitly forbidden from celebrating the return of those released. While Israelis were encouraged to celebrate the return of their captives, Palestinians waiting outside Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank were met with Israeli police firing tear gas at families and journalists.

The Guardian was among the few mainstream outlets to note the prohibition.

Such moments are not minor details: Israel's attempt to control even the emotional expressions of Palestinians further exposes both the power asymmetry and the cruelty of its military occupation.

Media reckoning

Western media reporting of the captive exchange did more than privilege one side; it reinforced a hierarchy of human worth in which Israeli lives are inherently more valuable and sympathetic than Palestinian ones.

This is consistent with broader research on media coverage of the war. For example, a study published last year about the first two weeks of the war - when nearly 3,000 Palestinians and about 1,200 Israelis were killed - found that sampled outlets ran four times as many emotional, personalised accounts of Israeli victims as Palestinian victims.

Western media reporting of the captive exchange reinforced a hierarchy of human worth in which Israeli lives are inherently more valuable

Other studies confirm western media's chronic over-reliance on Israeli and pro-Israeli sources.

But news audiences are changing, and so is public opinion on Israel and Palestine. Over the past two years, pro-Palestinian sentiment has risen sharply across western publics, especially among young people and, even as trust in mainstream media declines, and it continues to face intensifying criticism.

In light of this shift, it is not surprising that many people - particularly youths - are turning instead to independent or alternative platforms for coverage of Israel and Palestine.

Within newsrooms, too, dissent is growing. Staff revolts have erupted at major outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the BBC, where hundreds of journalists have expressed anger over obvious pro-Israel editorial policies.

At what point will newsrooms recognise the gravity of this crisis? For the sake of news audiences, journalists and suffering Palestinians, a reckoning cannot come soon enough.  

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Mohamad Elmasry is Professor of Media Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Israel raids homes of West Bank prisoners set to be released in deal

 Families of captive Palestinians threatened not to celebrate release of family members following ceasefire deal

 

Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian man during a raid in Ramallah city in the occupied West Bank on October 7, 2025 (Zain Jaafar / AFP)
By Fayha Shalash in Ramallah, occupied Palestine

The Israeli army has raided the homes of several Palestinian prisoners in the occupied West Bank whose names were included in the list of prisoners to be released in an exchange deal following the Gaza ceasefire.

The raids on Sunday morning targeted the homes of several prisoners who were to be released, as well as prisoners who were to be deported to the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The raids included homes in Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron, Tulkarm and Qalqilya.

Israel agreed to release 250 Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences and life sentences, and 1,700 prisoners from the Gaza Strip captured during the war, in exchange for Hamas releasing all Israeli prisoners, both alive and dead.

Israel has refused to include Palestinian prisoner leaders in the deal, most notably Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmed Saadat, and Hamas leader Abdullah Barghouti, threatening to sabotage the agreement if Hamas continued to pressure mediators to release them.

The raids on Palestinian prisoner homes come as detainees are being transferred and Israeli preparations are underway to regroup them in Ofer and Naqab prisons, in preparation for their release to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

An explicit threat

The Israeli army distributed leaflets in several areas with a clear threat not to participate in the prisoner welcome celebrations, or they would face severe punishment, according to the army.

Razan, the daughter of prisoner Taleb Makhamreh from Yatta, south of Hebron, told Middle East Eye that the Israeli army brutally raided the family's home on Saturday evening and warned them not to show any signs of joy or celebration.

She said they targeted the homes of three prisoners in Yatta who were scheduled to be released. She explained that her father would be released to the Gaza Strip without the family knowing if he were to be deported to Egypt afterwards.

Makharma will complete 23 years in Israeli prisons next week and has been sentenced to seven life terms.

'The soldiers raided the house, threatened us and told us that we were forbidden from showing any signs of joy or welcoming those congratulating him on his release'

- Razan, daughter of detainee

"The soldiers raided the house, threatened us and told us that we were forbidden from showing any signs of joy or welcoming those congratulating him on his release," she added.

"They also fired random bullets in the neighbourhood, wounding a young man in the hand, and assaulted other young men."

Alaa Bani Odeh, the father of prisoner Muhammad from Tamoun, south of Tubas, said the Israeli army raided his home at 6am on Sunday morning and stayed there for an entire hour.

The soldiers spent that hour constantly threatening them against celebrating his release and preventing any celebration or even welcoming people into a public hall.

Bani Odeh will be released to his home in Tammun after four years in prison. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a fine of 180,000 shekels ($45,000). He was arrested in Jaffa on charges of stabbing and wounding a settler.

"They told us that if there were any celebrations, we would immediately re-arrest him and arrest all family members," he said. "Flying Palestinian flags or faction flags is prohibited."

'Joy is in the heart'

The same thing happened with the families of four prisoners who will be released as part of the deal from the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus.

Maher, the uncle of prisoner Waseem Mleitat, told MEE that the Israeli army simultaneously raided the homes of four Palestinian prisoners and instructed their families not to celebrate or express joy.

Has Trump's peace plan introduced new mediators to Israel-Palestine?
Read More »

They also warned the families against holding any public receptions for them in any hall in the town.

"Waseem was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 10 years and will be released to his home. He has spent 23 and a half years in Israeli prisons," Maher said.

"We hope that he will be released and return to his home and family, even without celebrations. Joy is in the heart."

According to the Palestinian Commission of Prisoners' Affairs, the final list of prisoners to be released has not yet been disclosed, but the list currently being circulated is the one approved by the Israeli government.

More than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, including 400 children and 53 women, whom Israel also refused to include in the deal.

Saturday, October 11, 2025

First Ceasefire, Then Palestinian Liberation

 

Source: Progressive Hub

Today, after more than two years of the US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, President Trump announced that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of ceasefire agreement.  And while the single most important thing right now is saving Palestinian life, Trump’s deal does nothing to address the root cause of injustice: Israel’s brutal military rule and oppression of Palestinians.

While a ceasefire does not bring an end to the genocide, right now we are holding tightly to the hope that Israel will in fact finally be compelled to the first elements of this agreement: halting the mass killing of Palestinians through bombardment, and stopping its blockade of food and medicine. And we await the moment when thousands of Palestinian hostages and Israeli hostages will be returned home to their families and loved ones.

For two years, Palestinians in Gaza have endured unimaginable hell under the Israeli state’s genocide with no reprieve.  The Israeli military has razed Gaza to the ground, destroying entire neighborhoods and cities, demolishing the centuries-old infrastructure of Palestinian life, decimating the healthcare system, water supplies, electricity grid, schools, universities and cultural institutions. We know from our own history how the trauma of this campaign of annihilation will unfold for generations.

We are clear that Trump’s plan seeks to create a new Middle East in which Israeli apartheid and genocide are normalized and integrated into a regional and global economy that maintains Palestinian subjugation. Trump’s deal also allows Israel to carry out a genocide without being held to account for its atrocities. Two years of Israeli genocide were possible because the Israeli government has never once been held accountable for decades of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. Justice can only begin once Israeli impunity is challenged.

Even with this ceasefire in place, our movements will continue to call for an immediate and full arms embargo, and an end to the complicity of U.S. corporations that profit from ethnic cleansing.  The U.S. and Israeli governments, U.S. weapons manufacturers, and countless US institutions will continue the genocide and violent status quo of Israeli apartheid – it is our job to stop them. The millions of people who have organized for a ceasefire will not rest until we upend the financial, cultural, and political alliance that ties the U.S. and Israel’s ongoing atrocities. Our only option is to be bolder and clearer in defense of Palestinian life and liberation.

Friday, October 10, 2025

The Trump Gaza Plan & the Politics of Coercion

 

Source: Counterpunch
 

In this interview, international legal scholar Richard Falk breaks down Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan. He discusses its coercive nature and the politics of the West at the expense of Palestinian agency and describes the Israeli and Hamas political psychology, as they both face pressure in adhering to or rejecting the plan. This all shows the fragility of dialogue when the continuation of settler-colonialism is at play in pursuit of an imperial grand strategy.

Daniel Falcone: Could you comment on Israel and Hamas and their motivations within the “Trump Plan?”

Richard Falk: Israel and Hamas have reasons to fulfill the first stages of the Trump Plan and share strong pressures to allow it to collapse thereafter. Netanyahu faces pressure from his ultra-right partners (led by Smotrich and Ben Gvir) to resume the Gaza City operation to destroy Hamas resistance and avoid signs of weakness by accepting a diplomatic compromise forced upon Israel by Trump’s coercive threat diplomacy.

Hamas faces pressures, some relating to its acceptance of a plan heavily weighted in Israel’s favor and devised without its participation in conformity with the colonial playbook. The absence of Palestine in the shaping of the plan has problematic implications that bear on Hamas’ future role. This plan is tainted by its perverse impression of rewarding the perpetrators of genocide while punishing victims. It makes no pretense of either procedural or substantive balance with its minimal contributions to the realization of Palestinian rights as amounting to acts of charity conferred by the perpetrator and its main complicit supporter.

Despite these drawbacks both Israel and Hamas have pragmatic reasons for adherence. On the Israeli side, after the release of all Israeli hostages by Hamas, there is no longer any need for exhibiting constraint in the future should Israel decide it no longer sufficiently benefits from the plan. By accepting the Trump deal, Netanyahu might also believe that his legitimacy is restored. Israel’s pariah status acquired by its lawless behavior since the October 7 attack will be overcome.

Israel might also believe in the diplomacy since Arab states and Muslim majority societies, like Turkey and Malaysia reveal strong political momentum in favor of the plan. There are economic incentives for Israel to do its part in bringing the violence to an end. This latter consideration will undoubtedly be downplayed internally by Israel. It would reveal Israel’s vulnerability arising from its acute economic precariousness and the related impact of growing informal and formal international hostility and civil society activism. So long as Trump believes the plan was a brilliant contribution to peacemaking, Israel would be most reluctant to antagonize the White House by taking responsibility for the collapse of the 20 Point Plan.

Reverse considerations are at play on the Hamas side. Giving in to this one-sided plan, and its ‘negotiation’ by way of an ultimatum, is suggestive of Hamas being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. The surviving population of Gaza seems to seek an end to Israeli violence no matter how high the political costs of giving up their resistance, based on a survival-first ethos, even if it involves the acceptance of a colonialist governance scheme that probably will produce a chapter of high profits in the history of disaster capitalism.

Such a plan seems to deprive Gazans of any influence in guiding the restoration process and governance arrangements, or of the economic benefits of their own large offshore natural gas deposits. How a post-genocide Gaza is rebuilt has crucial identity and heritage implications. Choices as to whether to recreate a traditional architectural and residential character or go with international styles of modernism as in Doha or Dubai is of great relevance to the character of Gaza as a community develops, and as whether it remains an Arab city or becomes a Western city.

Hamas is internally split and somewhat implicit in its ‘conditional’ acceptance of the Trump Plan. It is ready to implement the prisoner exchange and ceasefire features but is so far holding out when it comes to an acceptance of a unilateral obligation to disarm and to endorse post-conflict governance that excludes Palestinian participation. Unlike Israel, Hamas has little to lose by a reasoned repudiation of Trump’s Israel-aligned diplomacy, especially if Israel seems intent on breaking the ceasefire.

The future of the Trump Plan after the probable implementation of its initial phases is a matter of conjecture in a diplomatic atmosphere fraught with uncertainty. Hoping for the best at this stage seems to imply support for an immediate ceasefire of uncertain duration, return of the Israeli hostages, and negotiations that include Hamas and are designed to determine the post-conflict political future of Gaza, which means above all, the maintenance of the ceasefire.

I refrain from using ‘war’ and ‘peace.’ First, the armed conflict in Gaza was asymmetrical in military capabilities as to make the violence resemble ‘a massacre’ more than ‘a war.’ Second, this alleged turn by the U.S. to threaten diplomacy by way of a ‘take it or leave it’ proposal is better regarded as a continuation of coercion by a threat and ultimatum than a search for peace based on international law. It is a short step away from warning Hamas that if it does not accept the proposal in 72 hours, the U.S. will support an Israeli decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza City.

Daniel Falcone: What would happen if the hostages were not released?

Richard Falk: If Israel resumes its military operations or breaches the ceasefire with respect to the delivery of aid, then efforts should be made to restore compliance with the plan. If Hamas refuses to release all the hostages without offering a persuasive explanation, then at this stage there seems a failure of the Trump approach that would lead Israel in all probability to resume its state violence.

Israel could limit its reaction to the partial release of the hostages by refusing to withdraw its troops or even redeploying them rather than repudiating the ceasefire. The U.S. reaction would also be relevant, either by throwing its weight in support of Israel’s return to genocidal battlefield tactics of conflict-resolution or by counseling a moderate tit-for-tat response — that left the ceasefire in place and called for further negotiations aimed at achieving the completion of all 20 points in the Trump plan. No matter what Hamas does by way of provocation in relation to the prisoner exchange, it gives Israel no grounds for claiming impunity in relation to the crime of genocide.

Daniel Falcone: Could you remark on how this hardly changes the balance of power in Gaza. Any hope for a short respite in the conflict? Could the deal slow down the production of Greater Israel?

Richard Falk: If Hamas should agree to disarm, and some sort of Arab stabilization force established order in Gaza during a transition period it would give U.S./Israel substantial control and create a situation where Palestinians on the ground faced a choice of leave, submit, or resist. This latter option would expose the Gaza population to harsh policing and lifestyle restrictions that may be unwelcome after years of enduring Israeli oppression either by direct occupation from 1967 to 2005 or the siege from 2007 to the present.

If Israel respected the military withdrawal provisions of the plan, the population of Gaza would at least be free from apartheid style repression that was initiated by the conquest of Palestinian Territories in the 1967 War. If normalization was accompanied by large-scale international aid in relation to construction, education, health, and culture, the daily life experience of Gazans would improve dramatically and objections to the Trump transition setup could wither away and even possibly marginalize Hamas if Palestinian sentiments turned from resistance and liberation to the benefits of normalization.

Israel might allow this normalization scenario to unfold in Gaza and concentrate its political efforts on overcoming its pariah status, which could lead to many gains by way of prosperous relations with neighbors and the West. It could reaffirm its commitment to democracy and even dismantle its apartheid policies and practices, at first in pre-1967 Israel, but later in the West Bank where it would order the Israeli settlements to either withdraw from Palestine or make a credible adjustment to peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian governing institutions. This seems far-fetched and presupposes the radical reform of Zionist ideology or its abandonment, but nothing short of this can have any realistic chance of delivering a justice-driven future to these embattled two peoples. Algeria and South Africa both reversed courses and transformed into forms of democratic coexistence. Gaza would certainly benefit from a coexistence model instead of the visions for a Greater Israel.

The Zionist Movement has always been content with taking what it can in the present political context without giving up on seeking to come closer to its final goals. This pattern of salami tactics goes back at least as far as the Balfour Declaration and continued with its acceptance of the UN Partition Plan of 1947, followed by ‘the Green Line’ armistice in the 1948 War, and in phases up to the present. A way of conceiving of the Trump Plan is another such step in the direction of achieving Greater Israel and having the side geopolitical benefit of whitewashing Israel and those complicit from any responsibility for genocide during the last two years.