The Israeli military on Saturday stepped up its bombing of Gaza Strip, intensifying its renewed bombing on the second day after a truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed, with Israel accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the agreement.
The Israel Defense Forces IDF said on X on Saturday that Israeli strikes hit a total of over 400 terrorist targets in Gaza, including more than 50 targets in the area of Khan Yunis and an Islamic Jihad operational command center inside a mosque, as well as military targets used by Hamas Naval Force.
The BBC reported that hundreds of Gaza residents were seen leaving to the western part of Khan Yunis after the Israeli army on Friday dropped leaflets over the area warning people to leave.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo earlier Saturday said he had spoken with Israel’s president following the resumption of fighting in Gaza and told him there could be no more killing of civilians. “I’ve addressed my concerns about the fact that violence has started again and I’ve again repeated what I said at the Rafah gate: no more civilian killings,” De Croo told reporters at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, according to a Reuters report.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Friday skipped a speech he was scheduled to give at the COP28 meeting and accused Hamas of “blatantly” violating the truce. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on his X account that the fight against Hamas will continue “until we achieve all our goals: the return of all our abductees, the elimination of Hamas, and the promise that Gaza will never be a threat to Israel again.”
Hamas launched a violent attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages. Since then, Israel has been carrying out retaliatory strikes on the besieged enclave, killing more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Pope Francis has triggered a backlash from Jewish groups who see his comments over the Israeli-Palestinian war as accusing both Hamas and Israel of “terrorism.”
The pontiff met Jewish families with relatives held hostage by Hamas, and Palestinians with families still in the Gaza Strip. He told an audience in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City that he recognized suffering on both sides, saying: “This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”
At a news conference on Wednesday, representatives of Palestinians who met with Francis quoted him as using the word “genocide” to describe the situation. But Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni denied this and said in a statement: “I am not aware that he used such a word.”
Pope Francis meets Palestinians in the Vatican City on November 22. His comments on the Israeli-Palestinian war have led to backlash from some Jewish groups. Vatican Media/Vatican Pool/Getty Images
On Monday 20 November, U.S. officials addressed claims of a genocide committed by Israel. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) asked the Vatican to “clarify” what Pope Francis said.
In a statement on X, the AJC wrote it was “grateful” to Francis for meeting with hostage families but added: “Later in the day, he described the Israel-Hamas war as ‘beyond war,’ as ‘terrorism.’ Hamas’ butchering and kidnapping of civilians is terrorism. Israel’s self-defense is not. Vatican, please clarify.”
A statement from the Council of the Assembly of Italian Rabbis seemed to accuse Francis of “publicly accusing both sides of terrorism.”
It said unnamed “Church leaders” did not condemn the Hamas attack and said they were “putting the aggressor and the attacked on the same plane in the name of a supposed impartiality.”
U.S.-based Jewish human rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote on its website: “It is important for one of the world’s primary faith leaders, for whom people of all faiths look to spiritual and moral guidance, not to forget that all those who came to speak and seek solace from him, all their suffering, all their loss, are on the hands of the Hamas terrorists who, on October 7th, inflicted in the most brutal way, the worst mass murder of Jews since the defeat of Nazi Germany and World War II.”
Newsweek has reached out to representatives of Pope Francis to offer a response to the comments.
Pope Francis addresses a delegation in the Vatican City on November 22. Jewish groups have accused him of describing Israeli actions in Gaza as “terrorism.” Vatican Media/Vatican Pool/Getty Images
A surprise attack from Hamas gunmen who crossed the border into Israel on October 7 killed 1,200 and led to around 240 people being taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Reuters figures quote tallies from health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza that claim more than 14,000 people have been killed there as a result of Israeli military action.
A four-day pause in fighting has been agreed to start today (November 24) in a deal that will see 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners released. Both sides say the pause is temporary.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Calls to boycott Black Friday as part of protests over the Israeli-Palestinian war are growing on social media.
Protesters on platforms including X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram have argued that people should not take part in the discount day on November 24 because the pause in fighting agreed between Israeli officials and Hamas is not enough.
The deal will see Hamas release at least 50 hostages over a four-day period, with a temporary stop in fighting, more humanitarian aid into Gaza and 150 Palestinian women and teenagers held in Israeli jails released.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in New York City on October 9, 2023. Some activists are now calling for a Black Friday boycott as part of a protest over the Israeli-Palestinian war. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
But the reaction from some pro-Palestinian accounts on social media demanded a total stop to the war and called for the Black Friday boycott to take place in protest.
One post that was seen more than 60,000 times on X said the pause in fighting was so shoppers can “spend guilt free” and urged consumers to “hit them in their pockets” by not taking part.
Another reached more than 177,000 people and asked: “Are you ready to disrupt business as usual? No celebrating in peace while genocide takes place. This Black Friday, November 24, people around the world will boycott, disrupt, and rally at commercial centers as we continue to #ShutItDown4Palestine.”
Following the October 7 assault, during which thousands of Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack from Gaza into southern Israel and killed 1,200 Israelis, predominantly civilians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until the Israeli goal of the elimination of Hamas and the return of hostages is achieved.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said of accusations of genocide: “Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we’re going to start using that word, fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”
Black Friday shoppers walk through a mall in Colorado on November 26, 2021. The commercial discount event is set to be boycotted by some protesters this year. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
The Party for Socialism and Liberation 2024 campaign of Claudia De La Cruz for President & Karina Garcia for VP has also backed the Black Friday boycott.
In a statement, it wrote: “This holiday season also presents a crucial opportunity for us to take a stand for the Palestinian people. We call on everyone to join the Shut it Down for Palestine movement: disrupt, march, rally and take other creative actions at commercial centers this Friday.
“Tens of thousands across the country will be shutting down business-as-usual on Black Friday, the most profitable day of the year for major retail corporations—join us!”
The protest groups’ demands include a permanent ceasefire, the end of all U.S. aid to Israel and the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
But despite people vowing to boycott, it is unlikely to have an impact on Black Friday and data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported by Forbes predicts that more people than ever are set to make a purchase as part of the upcoming annual event and surrounding sales.
An estimated 182 million people are planning to shop in-store and online from Thanksgiving Day through to Cyber Monday, according to the federation’s survey. This is the highest estimate since they began tracking the data in 2017.
Newsweek has contacted the NRF and The Party for Socialism and Liberation via email for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League on Saturday condemned statements by Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right politician who won this week’s election in the Netherlands, that Palestinians should be relocated to Jordan.
The Palestinian Authority labeled the statements as “a call to escalate the aggression against our people and a blatant interference in their affairs and future,” the Wafa news agency reported.
Jordan issued a separate condemnation and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Yemen, and the Arab League did the same, Arab News reported.
“Irresponsible statements made by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders [are] considered interference in the internal affairs of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and [are] rejected and condemned,” the UAE embassy in the Netherlands wrote on X.
A populist and anti-Islam far-right politician, Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), is known for his firm support for Israel. Over the last few years, he has advocated for the right of Israel to set up settlements in the West Bank, and he often reiterated the idea that Jordan is Palestine, suggesting that the conflict between Palestinians and Israel could be resolved through the dislocation of Palestinian people to Jordan.
Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to extend the temporary cease-fire in Gaza by two days, a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry said Monday.
“The State of Qatar announces, as part of the ongoing mediation, an agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian truce for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip,” Majed Al Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said on X, formerly Twitter.
At a White House press briefing on Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said “we welcome the announcement” of the two-day extension and announced the arrival of the “biggest humanitarian convoy” to Gaza since the October 7 attack. On Saturday, 187 aid trucks had made it into Gaza, according to the U.N., sending desperately needed food, water and fuel to more than 2 million Palestinians who are under an Israeli government imposed “complete siege” since the Hamas attack.
Kirby said fewer than 10 American citizens are among the remaining Hamas hostages. “We’re grateful we’ve got an extra two days to work with here,” Kirby continued, adding that “we’d certainly like to see even that extension extended further until all the hostages are released.”
Yet Kirby also underscored the risks associated with the humanitarian pause. Kirby acknowledged that there was a “real risk” that a pause in fighting could benefit Hamas’ capabilities. Under a previous deal struck last week and brokered by Qatar — together with the United States and Egypt — Israel and Hamas had agreed to halt hostilities in Gaza.
“I would just say that, without getting into intelligence matters, that any pause in the fighting could benefit your enemy, in terms of time to refit, to rest your fighters, to rearm them, re-equip them,” Kirby noted.
The agreement, which included the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas as well as dozens of Palestinians in Israeli detention, was set to expire on Tuesday, at 7 a.m. local time (6 a.m. CET).
Family members of Israelis being held in Gaza gather in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on November 20.
Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images
There were intense exchanges during a committee meeting in the Israeli parliament Monday as family members of some of the hostages held in Gaza clashed with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other far-right members of the government.
Ben-Gvir, a divisive figure in Israeli politics who wants Israel to annex the Palestinian territories, is promoting legislation that would see the death penalty handed down to terrorists.
Hostage family members, holding pictures of their loved ones, vented their frustrations. One of them, Gil Dickmann, whose cousin is being held in Gaza, repeatedly shouted: “Bring them home!”
Already frustrated at the apparent lack of progress to free the hostages, the family members accused Ben-Gvir of endangering their loved ones further by putting the issue of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons back in the spotlight.
Family members worry that by suggesting that Israel might execute Palestinian prisoners, it could make Hamas less willing to release hostages or increase the likelihood of their mistreatment in Gaza.
Almog Cohen, a colleague of Ben-Gvir in the Jewish Power party, fired back at family members.
“You don’t have a monopoly on pain. We also buried more than 50 friends,” Cohen said.
The meeting was held to discuss Ben-Gvir’s proposed legislation, which is making its way through parliament. It still has several stages to pass before it becomes law and could be withdrawn.
Later in Tel Aviv, a large group of other family members met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the war cabinet at the Defense Ministry.
Udi Goren, one of the family members, left early because he felt there was no new information provided by the war cabinet.
He said he was very disappointed to hear the government was not prioritizing the release of the hostages above all else, including the mission to defeat Hamas.
Asked if he had heard any information about a possible release of hostages, Goren told CNN there was nothing new.
The March for Israel brought more than 100,000 people to the nation’s capital in a show of solidarity for Israel and to call attention to the hostages that are still being held by Hamas. According to the New York Times, a host of U.S. lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, attended the march.
While the event was peaceful and garnered support from legislators of both major political parties, videos shared on social media show counter-protesters heckling rallygoers.
In the 31-second video, shared to X, formerly Twitter, by TENET Media, a counter-protester yells at children shortly after the march ends. In the profanity-laced clip, the protester taunts the kids, saying they’re “not the real Jews.”
“Counter protester walks around after the Americans March For Israel event concluded and yells at children ‘Sorry kids, you’re not the real Jews,'” TENET Media posted.
Thousands of people attend the March for Israel on the National Mall on November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. The March for Israel was organized to free Israeli hostages and to counter rising incidents of antisemitism. Video shared on social media after the event shows an anti-Israel protester heckling kids. Roy Rochlin/WireImage/Getty
Newsweek reached out via email and social media on Tuesday to the march’s organizers for comment.
The video, the authenticity of which Newsweek was unable to independently verify, was first posted to X just after 3:40 p.m. EST. Newsweek reached out via TENET Media’s website for comment and additional information about the incident.
The March for Israel, organized by the Jewish Federations of North America, comes as tensions between supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestinians continue to brew in the U.S. as the Israel-Hamas war wages on.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on October 7, which was the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza. According to Israeli officials, 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and at least 240 hostages have been taken back to Gaza as of Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, while more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to officials from the health ministry in Gaza, the AP said.
Since the bloodshed began last month, people have taken to protesting the U.S.’s response to the unrest, provoking strong reactions and heated debate.
The violence in the Middle East has ignited widespread pro-Palestinian protests across the globe, which in some cases have spilled over into expressions of support for Hamas’ actions and overt antisemitic threats.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Battles between Israel and Hamas around hospitals forced thousands of Palestinians to flee from some of the last perceived safe places in northern Gaza, stranding critically wounded patients, including newborns, and their caregivers with dwindling supplies and no electricity, health officials said Monday.
The Israeli military has urged Palestinians to flee south on foot through what it calls safe corridors. But its stated goal of separating civilians from Hamas militants has come at a heavy cost: More than two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes.
Thousands fled Gaza’s Shifa Hospital over the weekend as Israeli troops encircled it, but hundreds of patients and displaced people remain, officials say. Shifa “is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
After power went out for Shifa’s incubators, the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza released a photo on Monday it says shows about a dozen premature babies wrapped in blankets together on a bed to keep them at a proper temperature. Otherwise, “they immediately die,” said the health ministry’s director general, Medhat Abbas, who added that four of the babies had been delivered by cesarean section after their mothers died.
Palestinians evacuate a wounded woman following an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman)
The Red Cross was attempting Monday to evacuate some 6,000 patients, staff and displaced people from a second hospital, Al-Quds, after it shut down for lack of fuel, but it said its convoy had to turn back because of shelling and fighting.
Both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals, particularly Shifa’s, as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel, whose response has led to thousands of deaths — and much destruction — across Gaza.
For Palestinians, Shifa evokes the suffering of civilians. For weeks, staff running low on supplies have performed surgery there on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia. Up until days ago, tens of thousands of people driven from their homes by airstrikes lived in and around the complex, hoping it would be safe.
Israel says Hamas shields itself among civilians, and that the hospital, Gaza’s largest, is a prime example. It says the militants have a command center in and beneath the medical compound and released maps showing where it says they are located in the complex. But it has not provided any evidence.
Both Hamas and Shifa hospital staff deny the Israeli allegations.
The Palestinians accuse Israel of firing recklessly toward hospitals, while Israel accuses Hamas of using the hospitals for cover. On Monday, Israel released a video showing what it said was a militant with an RPG launcher entering Al-Quds hospital. An Israeli tank was stationed nearby.
Israeli tanks manoeuvre near the Israeli-Gaza border, southern Israel, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israeli officials recently released photos and footage showing what they described as gunmen firing from inside another hospital and the opening of tunnel next to it, though staff said it was the entrance to the facility’s underground fuel tank. They also have shared footage of militants operating in residential neighborhoods and positioning rockets and weapons near schools, hospitals and mosques.
International law gives hospitals special protections during war. But hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Still, there must be plenty of warning to allow evacuation of staff and patients, and if harm to civilians from an attack is disproportionate to the military objective, it is illegal under international law. In an editorial published Friday in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said the attacker must meet a high burden of proof to show that a hospital has lost its protections.
After the exodus of people from Shifa over the weekend, about 650 patients and 500 staff remain in the hospital, along with around 2,500 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside the complex, said Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza.
The Health Ministry said 32 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. It said 36 babies, as well as other patients, are at risk of dying because life-saving equipment can’t function.
Photographs of Israelis who were kidnapped during Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7 are glued atop a poster of the Israeli flag on a board in Jerusalem on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Goudat Samy al-Madhoun, a healthcare worker, said he was among around 50 patients, staff and displaced people who made it out of Shifa and to the south Monday, including a woman who had been receiving kidney dialysis. He said those remaining in the hospital were mainly eating dates.
Al-Madhoun said Israeli forces fired on the group several times, wounding one man who had to be left behind. The dialysis pateint’s son was detained at an Israeli checkpoint on the road south, he said.
The military said it placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel several blocks from Shifa, but Hamas militants prevented staff from reaching it. The Health Ministry disputed that, saying Israel refused its request that the Red Crescent bring them the fuel rather than staff venturing out for it. The fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity, it said.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses to allow wider distribution of badly needed aid. Israel has agreed only to daily windows during which civilians can flee northern Gaza along two main roads. It continues to strike what it says are militant targets across the territory, often killing women and children.
Tens of thousands of people remain in the north.
Saib Abu Hashish said he has been trapped in his family home along with 27 others in Gaza City. They haven’t left the house in three days, he said, and are running out of food and water. He said their neighbors attempted to flee but Israeli forces fired on them.
“We want to leave but we can’t because of the bombing,” he said by phone. “If we survive the bombing, we will die from hunger.”
Those who make it south face a host of other difficulties. U.N.-run shelters are overflowing, and the lack of fuel has paralyzed water treatment systems, leaving taps dry and sending sewage into the streets. Israel has barred the import of fuel for generators.
As of last Friday, more than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.
Health officials have not updated the toll, citing the difficulty of collecting information.
At least 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. The military says 44 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants still fire barrages of rockets, and along the northern border, where Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group repeatedly trade fire, including on Monday.
This story has been corrected to show that the Israeli military says 44, not 48, soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
Jeffery reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
As newborns perish at besieged Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, human rights organizations are urging U.S. President Joe Biden to “intervene” and demanding that Israel cease its attacks in the territory.
Health officials in Gaza say Israel has laid siege to Shifa, making the hospital a deathtrap for the thousands of healthcare workers, patients and displaced people inside. While Israel has carried out airstrikes on the territory since the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas, Israeli officials have denied attacking the hospital, which has been left without electricity and vital supplies.
The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, the Associated Press reports, citing the Hamas-run Health Ministry
The Health Ministry said another 36 newborns are at risk of dying and that there are 1,500 patients at Shifa, 1,500 medical personnel, and more than 15,000 people seeking shelter at the hospital.
Al-Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “medical devices stopped” and “patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die.”
The hospital director also said that Israeli troops were “shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital.”
Pictured is a newborn infant receiving care inside an incubator at a neonatal intensive care unit at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on September 29, 2022. Health officials in Gaza say Israel has laid siege to the hospital and blocked crucial supplies. As a result, officials said three premature babies had died after the hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on November 11, 2023, while another 36 babies were at risk of dying because there was no electricity. MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/Getty
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Al-Shifa “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Newsweek in a statement on Sunday that IDF placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near Shifa Hospital overnight for an emergency generator powering incubators for premature babies as well as “other urgent medical use.” However, the military blamed Hamas and said the militant group prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel.
Israeli officials have claimed that Hamas operates its command headquarters underneath the Shifa Hospital complex. The Israeli military released an illustrated map of the hospital with alleged locations of underground militant installations, without providing additional evidence to support the claims. Hamas and hospital staff have denied these claims, according to the Associated Press.
IDF told Newsweek that forces are engaged in “intense battles” near the hospital, but said that, “Unlike Hamas, the IDF is taking all feasible measures under operational circumstances to mitigate harm to civilians.”
IDF said a humanitarian corridor has been established to allow people to evacuate from the hospital south of Wadi Aza, through the streets of Al Wahada and Salah al-din.
As the fighting near the complex wages on, advocacy groups say it inhibits civilians from being able to safely flee and puts those who can’t in mortal danger. Numerous people and organizations took to social media to demand a ceasefire.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, demanded that the Biden administration “urgently intervene to stop the Israeli government’s ongoing siege of Al Shifa Hospital.”
CAIR said in a statement on Saturday that if the White House allows the Israeli government to “murder” newborn babies there will be “no coming back.”
“The Biden administration must intervene right now, right this minute, to stop the unfolding crime against humanity at the largest hospital in Gaza,” the statement reads. “Besieging a hospital, using snipers to murder fleeing families, and cutting off resources needed to keep newborn babies alive is beyond the pale, even for Netanyahu’s openly racist, genocidal Israeli government. If the White House allows the Israeli government to murder these newborns, other patients and their doctors, there will be no coming back for this administration’s standing within our nation and around the world.”
Newsweek reached out via email on Sunday to representatives for CAIR and Biden.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a UK-based nonprofit that works with Palestinian communities to help “uphold their rights to health and dignity,” joined the call for a ceasefire on Sunday, saying that is the only option to save the three-dozen premature and critically ill neonates at Al-Shifa.
MAP’s Chief Executive Officer Melanie Ward said on Sunday in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, that babies in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit are dying from lack of oxygen as Al-Shifa has no electricity or fuel to run generators.
Ward warned that more newborns at that facility will die soon unless power is restored.
“The only safe option to save these babies would be for Israel to cease its assault and besiegement of Al Shifa, to allow fuel to reach the hospital, and to ensure that the surviving parents of these babies can be reunited with them,” Ward said.
In a subsequent post, Ward expressed concerns over the Israeli government’s plan to move the babies to a “safer” hospital.
“We are deeply concerned by uncritical media reporting regarding the Israeli military’s statement that it will help move premature babies trapped at the hospital to a ‘safer hospital,'” Ward said in a post, which contained a photo of rubble-filled roadways and heavily damaged buildings.
“We are deeply concerned by uncritical media reporting regarding the Israeli military’s statement that it will help move premature babies trapped at the hospital to a “safer hospital”.” (3/6)https://t.co/Y68zKMawsy
She said with ambulances unable to reach Al-Shifa and no nearby hospitals able to accept an influx of patients, there is “no indication” of a way to safely transport the newborns.
“It is imperative that the international community demands a #CeasefireNOW, allowing the hospital to operate safely,” Ward said in a follow-up post. “We say again international law must be upheld. The life of every patient, health worker and displaced person in Shifa is precious and must be protected.”
Newsweek reached out via email on Sunday night to MAP for comment.
Ghebreyesus also joined the calls on social media for an immediate ceasefire. In a post on X, he said that WHO officials have been in contact with Shifa Hospital staff, who described the situation as “dire and perilous.”
“It’s been 3 days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care,” the director general said in the post. “The constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already critical circumstances. Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly. Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore. The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair. Ceasefire. NOW.”
.@WHO has managed to get in touch with health professionals at the Al-Shifa hospital in #Gaza.
The situation is dire and perilous.
It’s been 3 days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential…
In a televised address over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire without the release of the estimated 240 hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack that sparked the unrest.
Israel has said its goal is to crush Hamas and will pursue militant fighters wherever they are. Experts and rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes, including genocide.
Israel has come under mounting international pressure over the plight of civilians in Gaza, where roughly 2.3 million Palestinians are trapped, half of them children. The Israeli government also cut off the supply of food, medicine, water, and electricity in Gaza, igniting a wave of criticism.
As of Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry says more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, while about 2,700 have been reported missing or thought to be trapped or dead under rubble, The Associated Press reported.
On the Israeli side, at least 1,200 people have been killed, most of them in the Hamas attack last month, the AP reported, adding that 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the military’s ground offensive.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
TEL AVIV — Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled to quell a revolt by religious nationalists and settler leaders within his increasingly unruly governing coalition demanding he reverse a decision to let two fuel trucks per day enter Gaza — a concession the Israeli prime minister made amid growing U.S. and international pressure.
Rebellious coalition partners demanded to have more say over the conduct of the war after Netanyahu’s decision was announced Friday. They argued there should be no delivery of fuel, however limited, to the Palestinian coastal enclave — or any other humanitarian concessions — until Hamas frees the 240 Israeli hostages the group seized on October 7, when gunmen launched an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, Israeli officials say.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, insisted the war cabinet be expanded from three people, including Netanyahu, so that all seven parties in the coalition government have a seat. Smotrich said allowing fuel in “is a grave mistake.”
In recent weeks, as Western allies attempt to persuade Netanyahu to restrain Israeli military action — which has killed nearly 11,500 Palestinians in 42 days, according to separate counts by both the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-run government in Gaza, a number which some Israeli officials dispute — he has to contend with coalition partners who are set against conceding.
The religious nationalists and settler leaders also were critical of his decision last week, made again after arm-twisting by the Biden administration, to pause for a few hours daily its aerial bombardment and ground operations to allow Palestinians to flee south from the most intense fighting in northern Gaza.
The eruption within the coalition government over the fuel concession illustrates the dilemma Netanyahu faces in trying to balance far-right religious nationalists in his government and Israel’s Western allies, who are increasingly pressing him to ease the plight of Gaza civilians. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under air, land and sea blockade by Israel since 2007 — when Hamas wrested power over the Strip from Fatah — relied heavily on humanitarian aid before the war, including fuel to clean water, operate sewage systems and power now-shut-off telecommunications. Egypt has upheld a blockade on its border crossing at Rafah with Gaza since 2007.
Israeli officials say the decision to let in small amounts of fuel daily, a fraction of the fuel allowed before the war, was allowed as a gesture to Western allies and to avoid a breakdown of Gaza’s sewage and water systems, which would risk spreading disease, impacting civilians and Israeli troops.
“If plague were to break out, we’d have to stop the war,” National Security Council chairman Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters Friday.
But Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister overseeing Israel’s police, dismissed that argument, saying “so long as our hostages don’t even get a visit from the Red Cross, there’s no sense in giving the enemy humanitarian gifts.” Permitting fuel, he said, “broadcasts weakness, gives oxygen to the enemy and allows [Hamas Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar to sit comfortably in his air-conditioned bunker, watch the news and continue to manipulate Israeli society and the families of the abductees.”
Scrounging for fuel
Israel cut off all fuel deliveries to Gaza at the start of the war, forcing the enclave’s only power plant to shut down, and it has been highly reluctant to allow fuel into Gaza, claiming it could be used to keep generators working to pump oxygen into Hamas’ huge network of tunnels. “For air, they need oil. For oil, they need us,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said as the war commenced.
But civilians need fuel as well. Gaza hospitals have been scrounging to find fuel to run their generators to power incubators and other life-saving equipment. And the U.N. has been urging fuel deliveries. Midweek, Israel allowed in a small amount to keep United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid delivery trucks operating.
Netanyahu has agreed to no more than 140,000 liters being transported every two days into Gaza.
An official in the prime minister’s office told POLITICO: “60,000 liters of fuel (about two trucks) were approved, which is about 3.5 percent of the amount that came in before the war, in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis and enable the continued destruction of Hamas-ISIS. It will prevent the sewage system from collapsing. The long-term policy will be discussed tonight in the cabinet.”
President Biden asked Netanyahu for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
President Joe Biden expressed frustration last week about how long it took to get Israel to agree on brief humanitarian pauses. He had asked the Israeli leader not only for daily pauses but also for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas. On the latter he has so far been rebuffed but on the former, he said it had “taken a little longer than I hoped.”
Netanyahu has struggled to keep his rambunctious far-right coalition partners in line. Last week he urged ministers to pipe down and “be careful with their words” when they talk about the war on Hamas. “Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy,” the prime minister said at a full cabinet meeting. “We must be sensitive,” he added, saying speaking out of turn harms Israel’s international legitimacy.
His warning came after his agriculture minister, Avi Dichter, envisaged the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip becoming a permanent uprooting. He dubbed it the “Gaza Nakba of 2023,” a reference to the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, known as the nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic). “That’s how it’ll end,” Dichter said during a television interview.
Just days earlier, Amihai Eliyahu, the heritage minister, prompted an outcry in Israel and abroad when he suggested one option in the war could be to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Netanyahu quickly disavowed the comment, and then suspended Eliyahu from cabinet meetings.
And on Thursday, before the coalition eruption over Netanyahu’s backtracking on previous pledges not to allow a drop of fuel to enter Gaza, Ben Gvir said the West Bank should be flattened like Gaza following an attack by Hamas gunmen on a checkpoint south of Jerusalem.
“We need to deal with Hamas in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority which has similar views to Hamas and its heads identified with Hamas’ massacre, exactly like we are dealing with Gaza,” Ben Gvir said.
Netanyahu’s coalition partners are unlikely though to walk out of the government. None of the seven parties will want to set in motion the circumstances for a snap election. A poll Friday found that the Netanyahu-led coalition would be roundly beaten if elections for the Knesset were held today.
The Israeli prime minister isn’t getting any boost from the war, unlike Benny Gantz, a retired general and one of the leaders of the center-right National Unity party. He agreed to serve in the war cabinet for the duration of the fight, despite personal and political differences with Netanyahu. When asked who they would prefer as prime minister, 41 percent of respondents said Gantz; only 25 percent said Netanyahu.
The deal to release hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its terrorist attack on Israel now only depends on “minor” practical issues, the Qatari prime minister said on Sunday in Doha.
His comments came after the White House denied that an agreement had been reached, following a report by the Washington Post that Hamas was close to agreeing to free 50 hostages in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also denied that a deal had been reached.
“The challenges facing the agreement are just practical and logistical,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a press conference in Doha, alongside the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell.
Negotiations toward an agreement have seen “ups and downs from time to time throughout the last few weeks,” he said. “I’m now more confident that we are close enough to reach a deal that can bring the people safely back to their home,” he added.
The Biden administration said Washington was working “hard” to get a deal between Israel and Hamas.
Israel’s Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will not agree to a cease-fire until all the hostages have been released.
Qatar, which hosts a Hamas political office and has donated millions of dollars in financial aid to Gaza, was involved in the mediation that led to the release of four hostages in October, including an American woman and her daughter, and two Israeli women.
“I appreciate a lot the constructive role Qatar is playing … in fostering peace and stability,” Borrell said at the press conference, praising Qatar’s approach as “a key mediator.”
The World Health Organization described Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital as a “death zone,” after a U.N. team visited the largest medical complex in the Palestinian enclave on Saturday.
“The team saw a hospital no longer able to function: no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, medical supplies depleted,” WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on social media.
He announced WHO was trying to set up an urgent evacuation plan from the current situation, which was described as “unbearable and unjustifiable,” and called for a cease-fire.
Some 290 patients, including 32 babies in extremely critical condition, were left at al-Shifa, according to the U.N.-led mission, which accessed the facility briefly. The team also saw a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital, it said.
Meanwhile, the White House said the U.S. was working “hard” to get a deal between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of hostages seized by the militant group in exchange for a five-day pause in the fighting, after the Washington Post reported that the two sides are close to agreement on a U.S.-brokered deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. officials said no deal had been reached yet.
More than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed, while another 2,700 have been reported missing, according to Hamas-run health authorities in the Gaza Strip, following the group’s attack into southern Israel six weeks ago, which triggered the war. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Around 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mainly civilians from Hamas’ attack, in which the group also took 240 hostages back into Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly said the al-Shifa hospital houses a Hamas command center and announced it would soon release photos of the military’s findings of the hospital which include a tunnel shaft, Israel’s spokesman Daniel Hagari said during a news conference Saturday evening.
Israel on Thursday slammed four international media outlets — the New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters — over the conduct of four photojournalists in Gaza, saying they had advance knowledge of the attack by Hamas militants on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people.
The news services strongly rejected the Israeli government’s accusation they had any forewarning of the impending murderous assault, with the New York Times saying the “outrageous” charges endangered journalists in both Israel and Gaza.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused the foreign media of employing contributors who were tipped off on the Hamas attacks. “It has come to our attention that certain individuals within your organization, including photographers and others, had prior knowledge of these horrific actions and may have maintained a troubling connection with the perpetrators,” he wrote on X.
The Israeli government’s press office director, Nitzan Chen, wrote to the four organizations’ bureau chiefs in Israel asking for clarifications regarding the behavior of four photographers amid the assault by Hamas militants.
Israel’s letter, which was seen by POLITICO, accused the photojournalists who worked with the publications of arriving at Israel’s border “alongside Hamas terrorists, documenting the murder of Israeli civilians, lynching of soldier and kidnappings to Gaza” and sought a response on the “disturbing findings” published Wednesday by a pro-Israel non-governmental organization.
Israel’s request for clarification followed a report by Honest Reporting. The most serious question posed by the NGO was whether the photographers had a heads-up that the attack was being planned so were ready on the Saturday morning in order to track the Hamas militants at close range.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went further over the question of whether reporters should have chronicled the crimes rather than trying to stop them, saying the journalists were “accomplices in crimes against humanity.” Israeli centrist leader Benny Gantz, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, said journalists who were on the scene of the massacre but “still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered — are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such.”
The NGO’s report said two of the four photojournalists whose names first appeared under AP’s photo credits were also working as freelancers for CNN and the New York Times. Reuters published pictures from two other photojournalists who were also at the border as Hamas’ infiltration began.
On Thursday, the Israeli government’s press office published a statement on X accusing the four photographers of crossing “every professional and moral red line” for breaking through the border fence into Israel with the militants, filming the murder of civilians, the abuse of bodies, and the abduction of men and women.
Media hit back
Later on Thursday, Reuters, AP and The New York Times issued statements denying having had any prior knowledge of the October 7 attacks.
Reuters specifically hit back at the notion that it effectively had an embedded photojournalist with Hamas. It said it acquired photos from “two Gaza-based freelance photographers who were at the border on the morning of Oct. 7,” and that the agency didn’t have a prior relationship with either of them.
“The photographs published by Reuters were taken two hours after Hamas fired rockets across southern Israel and more than 45 minutes after Israel said gunmen had crossed the border,” Reuters added, saying its staff journalists “were not on the ground at the locations referred to in the Honest Reporting article.”
AP said that it “had no knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks before they happened. The first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more than an hour after the attacks began. No AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks, nor did any AP staffer cross the border at any time.“
It added that the agency is “no longer working with Hassan Eslaiah,” one of the photographers named in the report, “who had been an occasional freelancer for AP and other international news organizations in Gaza.” Honest Reporting’s report has a picture of Eslaiah smiling as he is kissed by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The New York Times described the accusations as “untrue” and “outrageous,” as they put “journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk.” It also criticized Honest Reporting for making “vague allegations against several freelance photojournalists working in Gaza, including Yousef Masoud,” clarifying that Masoud “was not working for The Times on the day of the attack,” but had done “important work” for the publication.
CNN has not issued any statement on the report. It was, however, cited by the Israeli Ynet network saying that it had cut ties with Eslaiah.
“We are aware of the article and photo concerning Hassan Eslaiah, a freelance photojournalist who has worked with a number of international and Israeli outlets,” a CNN spokesperson was quoted as saying by Ynet. “While we have not at this time found reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work he has done for us, we have decided to suspend all ties with him.”
London’s Metropolitan Police said that physical violence by far-right thugs and football hooligans on the city’s streets Saturday was more dangerous than the far-larger pro-Palestinian demonstration that was largely peaceful.
An estimated 300,000 people took to London’s streets on Saturday — as protesters did across other major European cities such as Paris and Brussels — to call for a cease-fire in Israel’s bombing campaign on Gaza. The London march was between Hyde Park and the U.S. Embassy.
The London police condemned “extreme violence from right-wing protesters” who it said set out to confront Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march. Nine officers were injured and 126 people were arrested, the “vast majority” of whom were counter-protesters, the police said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak blamed the violence on far-right “thugs” and “Hamas sympathizers” who had gtried to infiltrate the march.
Following the rally, Matt Twist, an assistant commissioner with the London Metropolitan Police, said that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) event “did not see the sort of physical violence carried out by the right wing” on Saturday, which had looked to clash with the PSC and stop the rally.
“This group were largely football hooligans from across the U.K. and spent most of the day attacking or threatening officers who were seeking to prevent them being able to confront the main march,” Twist said in a statement late Saturday. In searchers of the group members, the police found “a knife, a baton and knuckleduster … as well as class A drugs,” he said.
Ahead of the weekend, U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman had described pro-Palestinian events as “hate marches.”
Twist said some breakaway groups from the pro-Palestinian rally behaved in an “intimidating manner” with arrests made after officers were struck in the face with fireworks, but there was no comparable level of violence to the football hooligans.
“There were also a number of serious offenses identified in relation to hate crime and possible support for proscribed organizations during the protest that we are actively investigating,” said Twist.
Violent and intimidating protests were “deplorable,” Sunak said. “That is true for [far-right English Defence League] thugs attacking police officers and trespassing on the Cenotaph, and it is true for those singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing on today’s protest,” he said.
Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has received unlikely support from Republican Representative Ken Buck on Tuesday, amid attempts to censure her for comments related to the Israel-Hamas war.
On October 7, Hamas launched thousands of missiles into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israel subsequently launched its own rockets into Gaza, also cutting off supplies of water, food and electricity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is at war with Hamas, launching a ground operation in Gaza.
As of Tuesday, 10,300 people have been killed in Gaza, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing the Gaza Health Ministry. An estimated 1,400 have been killed in Israel, according to figures from AP.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, posted a video to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday asking for President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, for which the congresswoman and other progressive members of the House have been pushing.
Tlaib received criticism for her post, which featured a video with the chant, “from the river to the sea.” The phrase has different meanings for different groups.
GOP Representative Ken Buck is shown on December 13, 2019, in Washington, D.C., while Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib is pictured on March 9, 2023, in D.C. Buck on Tuesday surprisingly backed Tlaib amid the push by some to censure her.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the chant as a “call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state.” Tlaib calls the chant an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate,” she wrote in a post on X.
While speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Buck, a Colorado Republican, defended Tlaib’s right to speak, saying: “To compare a modern democracy with a repressive terrorist state is wrong, but it is also wrong for Congress to take this action at a time when we have serious issues that we face,” Buck said. “To take an action and take down the words, to strike the words, to censure a fellow member, no matter how incorrect we believe she may be, is wrong.”
Ken Buck showing his true colors, defends Rashida Tlaib against censure:
“We lower ourselves when we try to take action against someone else for their words, Buck continued. “We all go back to our districts and thank goodness social media hasn’t caught every one of us with everything that we say back in our districts, because we would all be standing here.”
“This is a wrong time to do this, it is the wrong action to take. Let’s pass a resolution condemning this kind of language, condemning antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere, but it is absolutely wrong to vote for this motion,” Buck concluded.
A Democratic motion to table the censure resolution against Tlaib on Tuesday failed on the House floor by a vote of 208-213-1, according to Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News.
A vote to move forward on censuring Tlaib advanced on Tuesday, according to AP. Representative Rich McCormick, a Georgia Republican, proposed the resolution on Monday, in response to Tlaib’s “antisemitic and racist actions.”
Newsweek has reached out to the offices of Tlaib and Buck via email for additional comment on Tuesday.
🚨A Democratic motion to table resolution to censure @RashidaTlaib has failed.
Political analyst Craig Agranoff told Newsweek, “Buck’s decision to oppose the censure of Rashida Tlaib is a bold move that could alienate some of his fellow Republicans as it’s viewed as a betrayal. But, it could also boost his reputation among moderate voters and independents who appreciate his willingness to stand up for free speech.”
Agranoff added, “His opposition is a sign that he is willing to break with party orthodoxy. This could make him a more attractive candidate to voters who are looking for a Republican who is not afraid to think for himself.”
On Monday, Tlaib released a statement regarding the censure effort, saying in part, “It’s a shame my colleagues are more focused on silencing me than they are on saving lives, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000. Many of them have shown me that Palestinian lives simply do not matter to them, but I still do not police their rhetoric or actions.”
“Rather than acknowledge the voice and perspective of the only Palestinian American in Congress, my colleagues have resorted to distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies. I have repeatedly denounced the horrific targeting and killing of civilians by Hamas and the Israeli government, and have mourned the Israeli and Palestinian lives lost,” Tlaib continued.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
In 1953, the Swiss novelist Max Frisch published a play called The Arsonists. It’s a pitch dark comedy about a small town ravaged by a group of maniacs disguised as traveling salesmen, who sweet-talk their way into people’s homes and then set them on fire. Its protagonist is a dolt called Biedermann—bieder being German for honest, respectable, and upright. He’s aware of the danger, and yet, when the arsonists knock, he lets them in. The tragedy, Frisch argues, is that he almost has no other choice: The arsonists are such smooth talkers that it’s easy, when listening to them, to ignore the large drums of kerosene and the matches they’re holding in their hands.
I thought of The Arsonists this week when I heard snippets of a podcast interview featuring former president Barack Obama on the Middle East. “Nobody’s hands are clean,” Obama said. “All of us are complicit.”
Nah, man. Not all of us are complicit. It’s just you.
It’s you, because you’re the one who gave that stentorian speech about red lines in Syria and then sat by and did nothing as those red lines were crossed and Assad continued to slaughter his own people, allowing the Iranians and the Russians to creep in and fill the vacuum left by your devastating lack of leadership.
It’s you, because you’re the one who came up with the idea of empowering Iran, the world’s premiere exporter of terrorism, Holocaust denial, and chaos, all the while telling the American people you were merely trying to stop Teheran from getting a nuclear bomb. Billions of dollars and thousands of dead later, we can all see how well this idea—which you, with the eloquence only a professor could muster, called “regional integration”—is working.
It’s you, because you’re the one who delivered a parting gift to the region, ending your final term as president by reversing four decades of American bipartisan support of Israel and abstaining from a U.N. vote condemning Israeli settlements, while funneling $400 million in annual payments to the despotic Palestinian Authority, which then promptly used this money to fund its pay-for-slay program, doling out large cash payments to any Palestinian who murdered Jews.
So, please, Mr. President: Spare us your opinions.
Former President Barack Obama speaks to attendees at the Obama Foundation Democracy Forum on November 03, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. Obama spoke about economic inclusion is fundamental to safeguarding and expanding democracies in countries around the world. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Lest anyone is tempted to think that Obama’s words and actions as president are somehow par for the course, just the muddled messaging that American presidents are forced to deliver when speaking about very complicated questions like Middle East politics, consider his successors and predecessors alike.
Calling Hamas “cold-blooded killers,” former president George W. Bush left little room for ambiguity in a recent interview. “My view is: One side is guilty,” he said. “And it’s not Israel.”
Bill Clinton? Just as clear: “Now is a time for the world to rally against terrorism and support Israeli democracy,” he said on social media two days after Hamas’s horrific attacks. “I stand with the government of Israel and all Israelis.”
President Joe Biden—once Obama’s vice president—delivered both a rousing speech in defense of Israel and, more importantly, the military might that may be needed to fight what is very clearly a much larger conflict than merely a skirmish between Israel and a small terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.
Which pretty much makes Obama an outlier, the lone voice making very different arguments than those advanced by his Democrat or Republican peers.
It hardly takes a political scientist—or a good therapist—to understand why. Study the 44th president’s record, to say nothing of his extensive writing and speeches, and a clear ideology emerges, the sort of gauzy anti-Imperialist fantasy so trendy in graduate seminar rooms that eschews American power and dreams that the wretched of the earth will rise up to the full measure of their native glory.
Only a mind gripped by the erotic pull of theory would look at the 2009 demonstrations in Iran—the so-called Green Revolution—and decide that America ought to side not with the huddled masses yearning to breathe free but with their jailers, the murderous mullahs who beat women to death for not wearing proper head coverings, execute gays, and kidnap Americans for ransom like common criminals.
It would be so tempting to tune Obama out, to argue that there’s no reason to listen to yet another actor who’d played his part and then stepped down from history’s brightly-lit stage. But Obama, alas, cannot be ignored, because the Democrat Party he’d left behind is still very much his creation and his machinery to control.
It’s no coincidence that Obama is the first person since Woodrow Wilson to remain in Washington, D.C., and the 28th president didn’t leave only because he had suffered a stroke and wasn’t mobile. And it’s a very loosely guarded secret that most of the people in the current administration are much more attuned to Obama’s wishes than to those of the Octogenarian Commander-in-Chief.
But the Obama interview isn’t all bad. Now that college campuses have spiraled into orgies of Jew-hatred; now that Hamas supporters set fire to Brooklyn blocks, turning our neighborhoods into American banlieues; and now that the same Palestinian leaders Obama so fiercely championed appear uninterested in anything but shedding the blood of innocent Israelis, the former president’s twaddle strikes a very different chord.
Maybe we can finally see Obama for what he truly is: The man who set the world on fire.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza fell under its third total communications outage since the start of the war on Sunday night, with Palestinian communications company Paltel saying all of its communication and internet services were down. Internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported a “new collapse in connectivity” across the besieged enclave.
“We have lost communication with the vast majority of the UNRWA team members,” U.N. Palestinian refugee agency spokesperson Juliette Touma told The Associated Press. The first Gaza outage lasted 36 hours and the second one for a few hours.
Israeli warplanes struck two refugee camps in the Gaza Strip earlier Sunday, killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strikes came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.
Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, a number that is likely to rise as Israeli troops advance into dense, urban neighborhoods.
Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said.
Palestinians look for survivors of the Israeli bombardment in the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
An Associated Press reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, who were brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the corridor, her clothes caked in dust, an expression of shock on her face.
Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli airstrike flattened several multi-story homes where people forced out of other parts of Gaza were sheltering.
“It was a true massacre,” he said while standing on the wreckage. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The camp, a built-up residential area, is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive on the north.
Another airstrike hit a house near a school at the Bureji refugee camp in central Gaza on Sunday, and staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital told the AP at least 13 people were killed. The camp is home to an estimated 46,000 people and was struck on Thursday as well.
Despite appeals and overseas demonstrations, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas and accusing it of using civilians as human shields. Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of civilians killed.
Palestinians inspect a damaged house that was raided by the Israeli army in the West Bank town of Abu Dis, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. The military said that the house was home to a militant who had orchestrated attacks against Israeli forces, the 22-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed during the raid. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Abbas, who has had no authority in Gaza since Hamas took over in 2007, said the Palestinian Authority would only assume control of Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” establishing an independent state that would also take in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel seized in the 1967 war.
His remarks seemed to further narrow the already slim options for who would govern Gaza if Israel succeeds in toppling Hamas. The last peace talks with Israel broke down more than a decade ago, and Israel’s government is dominated by opponents of Palestinian statehood.
Earlier in his tour, Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday reiterated while visiting an air force base that “there will be no ceasefire without the return of our abductees.” He added: “We will just continue until we beat them, we have no alternative.”
Arab leaders have called for an immediate cease-fire. But Blinken said that “would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7,” when the group launched a wide-ranging attack from Gaza into southern Israel, triggering the war.
Blinken said humanitarian pauses could be critical in protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out, “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas.”
Swaths of residential neighborhoods in northern Gaza have been leveled in airstrikes. The U.N. office for humanitarian affairs says more than half the remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in U.N.-run facilities. Deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters.
Palestinians flee the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din street in Bureij on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Israeli planes once again dropped leaflets urging people to head south during a four-hour window on Sunday. Crowds of people could be seen walking down Gaza’s main north-south highway carrying baggage, even pets, or pushing wheelchairs. Others led donkey carts.
One man said they had to walk 500 meters (yards) with their hands raised while passing Israeli troops. Another described seeing bodies in damaged cars along the road. “The children saw tanks for the first time. Oh world, have mercy on us,” said one Palestinian who declined to give his name.
Another Israeli airstrike overnight struck a water well in Tal al-Zatar in northern Gaza, cutting off water for tens of thousands of people, the Hamas-run municipality in the town of Beit Lahia said in a statement.
The U.N. said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes. Food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities is running out.
The war has stoked tensions across the region, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group repeatedly trading fire along the border.
In the occupied West Bank, at least two Palestinians were shot dead during an Israeli arrest raid in Abu Dis, just outside of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The military said a militant who had set up an armed cell and fired at Israeli forces was killed during the raid.
At least 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mainly during violent protests and gun battles during arrest raids.
Thousands of Israelis protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem on Saturday, urging him to resign and calling for the return of roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Some families are traveling abroad to try to make sure the hostages aren’t forgotten.
Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people. Ongoing Palestinian rocket fire has forced tens of thousands of people in Israel to leave their homes.
In another reflection of widespread anger in Israel, a junior government minister, Amihai Eliyahu, suggested in a radio interview Sunday that Israel could drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. He later walked back the remarks, saying they were “metaphorical.” Netanyahu issued a statement saying the minister’s comments were “not based in reality.”
Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from cabinet meetings, a move that has no practical effect.
The Israeli military said 29 of its soldiers have died during the ground operation.
Jobain reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, and Chehayeb from Beirut. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Ramallah, West Bank; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Cara Anna in New York contributed to this report.
A number of Hollywood celebrities are “adopting” people kidnapped by Hamas.
From Michael Douglas to Helen Mirren, A-listers are posting photos and information about some of the around 240 people held hostage by the militant group in Gaza.
The military arm of the Palestinian group launched an air and land attack in Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 and kidnapping others. Four of the hostages have been freed on medical grounds and one was rescued.
[MAIN IMAGE] Michael Douglas attends a photocall at the 76th annual Cannes film festival on May 16, 2023 in France. [INSET IMAGE] A poster bearing a photo of Israeli hostage Dafna Elyakim is seen in Sydney, Australia on October 27. Douglas is one of many celebrities to call for the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. Dominique Charriau//WireImage
Israel retaliated against Hamas by launching “Operation Swords of Iron,” which has been a series of unrelenting air raids and ground operations in Gaza. More than 9,000 people have been killed since Israel began its attacks in Gaza and more than 130 in the occupied West Bank, according to The Associated Press.
While celebrities have spoken out about the war and are divided on the topic, a number have taken to social media to call for the release of the hostages. They shared the official “kidnapped” posters of individuals being held hostage with information about them, from the Instagram account Kidnapped From Israel.
The stars include Jamie Lee-Curtis, Zooey Deschanel, Andy Cohen, Brett Gelman, Dr. Phil, Skylar Astin, Howie Mandel, Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, Amy Schumer, Alyssa Milano, Mayim Bialik, Mandy Moore, Phil Rosenthal, Chelsea Handler, Uzo Aduba and Sharon Osbourne.
Douglas shared three photos of a mother and her two children to his Instagram.
“On October 7th, 2-year old Aviv, her 4-year old sister Raz, her mother Doron and grandmother Efrat were kidnapped from their home when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. Aviv, Raz, their mother and grandmother are among over 229 hostages being held captive in Gaza in unknown conditions for over three weeks. Release Aviv, Raz, Doron and Efrat now!” Douglas wrote.
But one website described the celebrities’ actions as “adopting” the hostages.
Lior Zaltzman, deputy managing editor of Kveller, a Jewish parenting site, wrote by “putting out individual cries for their release,” the famous faces were thereby “adopting” the hostages.
In Hebrew, the verb “to adopt” means the same thing as in English but also refers to “hug someone or something tight, close to one’s bosom,” according to the Jerusalem Prayer Team website.
“It is actually saving a human being’s life… Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the root of this word shares the same spelling as the word o•metz which means: bravery, courage, and valor,” the website reads.
Zaltzman explained to Newsweek that she chose to use the word “adopt” because “it felt right in that instance.”
“There is something intimate in the action of taking on one face, one person, one story as your personal cause, especially from these incredibly recognizable celebrities,” she said. “But in doing this, celebrities aren’t necessarily taking ‘the side of Israel’…. a few of the celebrities in this project have called for a ceasefire and demanded humanitarian relief for Palestinians.”
But many celebrities have also voiced their support for Palestinian people and called for a ceasefire in Gaza to allow humanitarian aid to enter.
Former adult star Mia Khalifa has been one of the most vocal, as have supermodel sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid. Singer Zara Larsson and actress Tilda Swinton have also called for a ceasefire.
“My thoughts are with all those affected by the unjustifiable tragedy, and every day that innocent lives are taken by this conflict—too many of which are children,” Gigi Hadid wrote on Instagram.
“I have deep empathy and heartbreak for the Palestinian struggle and life under occupation, it’s a responsibility I hold daily. I also feel a responsibility to my Jewish friends to make it clear, as I have before: While I have hopes and dreams for Palestinians, none of them include the harm of a Jewish person.”
Swinton signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire alongside more than 4,300 people in the arts and entertainment industries.
“Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them,” the letter read, and also condemned “every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu was suspended indefinitely after he said in an interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities,” the government announced on Sunday.
“Eliyahu’s statements are not based in reality,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on X.
Israel and its military “are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents,” the prime minister added.
A member of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, Eliyahu earlier on Sunday claimed in a radio interview that since there were “no non-combatants in Gaza,” using an atomic weapon on the Palestinian enclave was “one of the possibilities.”
Eliyahu later sought to rectify his statement, saying it was “clear to all sensible people” that his reference to nuclear weapons had been “metaphorical.”
Israel, which has one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East, is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, although it has never publicly conducted nuclear tests.
Netanyahu’s government has been under fire for the failures of Israeli intelligence in preventing the surprise attacks from the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people on Israeli soil on October 7. The government has also been criticized for a lack of support provided to survivors of the attacks.
In retaliation, Israel’s government has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, limiting all access to food, water and fuel in the Palestinian enclave — which is controlled by the Hamas militant group and home to 2.3 million people — for the past month.
It has also launched a ground assault into Gaza and thousands of airstrikes on the enclave, killing more than 9,400 people, according to the Hamas-run heath authorities in Gaza. Israel’s offensive has also led to strikes on several non-military targets, including nearby refugee camps and an ambulance convoy which Israel says was being used by Hamas.
TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be digging in for a “long and difficult war” but former leader Ehud Barak fears Israel has only weeks left to eliminate Hamas, as public opinion — most significantly in the U.S. — rapidly swings against its attacks on Gaza.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the former prime minister and chief of the Israel Defense Forces also suggested a multinational Arab force could have to take control of Gaza after the military campaign, to help usher in a return of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to take over from Hamas. Even with that change of the political order in Gaza, however, Barak stressed the return to diplomacy aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state was a very remote prospect.
Barak, who led Israel between 1999 and 2001, observed the rhetoric of U.S. officials had shifted in recent days with a mounting chorus of calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. The sympathy generated toward Israel in the immediate wake of October 7, when Hamas launched the deadliest terrorist attack on Israel in the Jewish state’s 75-year history, was now diminishing, he worried.
“You can see the window is closing. It’s clear we are heading towards friction with the Americans about the offensive. America cannot dictate to Israel what to do. But we cannot ignore them,” he said, in reference to Washington’s role as the main guarantor of Israel’s security. “We will have to come to terms with the American demands within the next two or three weeks, probably less.”
As he was speaking, Israeli military officials told reporters the ground campaign was reaching a new dangerous phase with troops penetrating deep inside Gaza City, further than in previous operations in 2009 and 2014.
Barak spoke with POLITICO in his book-lined office in a high-rise apartment building in downtown Tel Aviv.
On the walls are photographs recording different stages of his storied career as a special forces soldier and statesman. One was snapped in May 1972 when he led an elite commando unit, which included Netanyahu, to rescue passengers from Sabena Flight 571, which was hijacked by Black September gunmen.
Under the photograph, there’s a piano. A trained classical pianist, Barak says he has recently been playing Chopin Ballade No. 1. A performance of that piece is central to the plot of the 2002 film The Pianist, which moves a German Nazi officer to hide Władysław Szpilman.
Barak added it would take months or even a year to extirpate the Islamist militant group Hamas — the main war aim set by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet – but noted Western support was weakening because of the civilian death toll in Gaza and fears of Israel’s campaign sparking a much broader and even more catastrophic war in the region.
Western nations are also anxious about their nationals among the 242 hostages Hamas is holding captive in Gaza, he continued.
“Listen to the public tone — and behind doors it is a little bit more explicit. We are losing public opinion in Europe and in a week or two we’ll start to lose governments in Europe. And after another week the friction with the Americans will emerge to the surface,” Barak said.
Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before | Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Last week, President Joe Biden raised the need for a “humanitarian pause” in the campaign.
And this week on his fourth trip to Israel, and his third to the region since October 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed the case with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet telling them they should now prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza and minimize civilian casualties.
Blinken’s efforts so far have been spurned by Netanyahu but Barak didn’t think the Israeli war cabinet would be able to fend off the Biden administration and Europeans for much longer.
Political and military veteran
Barak has plenty of experience of dealing with Israel’s allies and adversaries alike.
As prime minister he negotiated with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, in a 2000 summit hosted by President Bill Clinton, where they came close to striking a deal. A former defense minister and chief of staff, Barak was an elite commando and one of the key planners of Operation Thunderbolt, the rescue from Entebbe, Uganda, of the passengers and crew of an Air France jet hijacked by terrorists.
Barak said Israel rightly set the bar high in its Gaza war aim. “The shock of the attack was huge. This was an unprecedented event in our history, and it was immediately clear that there had to be a tough response. Not in order to take revenge, but to make sure that it cannot happen ever again.”
And even if the military campaign falls short of its maximum goal of the full eradication of Hamas, severe damage will have been inflicted on the Iran-backed Palestinian group, he explained. It will then be important to constrain Hamas from pulling off a resurgence, he continued.
Barak poses with members of the LGBTQ+ community in Tel Aviv in 2019 | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
To change the political landscape, he believed a multinational Arab force could take over Gaza after the Israeli military campaign.
“It is far from being inconceivable that backed by the Arab League and United Nations Security Council, a multinational Arab force could be mustered, with some symbolic units from non-Arab countries included. They could stay there for three to six months to help the Palestinian Authority to take over properly,” he said.
Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before.
Back in 2008-2009, when Israel and Hamas fought a three week-war, Barak, then Israeli defense minister, discussed with the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak the possibility of Egypt and other Arab nations stepping in to administer the Gaza Strip. “I remember his gesture,” says Barak. “He displayed his hands and said, ‘I will never ever put my hands back in the Gaza.’”
Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was equally dismissive.
Abbas told Barak he could never return to Gaza supported by Israeli bayonets. “I didn’t like the answer. But you can understand his logic. Fifteen years ago, it was impossible because there was no one who would do it but a lot has changed since then,” Barak said.
Displaced Palestinians wait at a food distribution at a U.N.-run center | Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images
Hamas battled the PLO-affiliated Fatah party for control of Gaza in 2007 in a clash that effectively split Palestinian political structures in two, with Hamas controling Gaza and Fatah predominating in the West Bank.
Barak noted Israel, Egypt and Jordan had deepened their anti-terrorism cooperation and Israel had signed “normalization” accords with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, a process that he thought Arab states would not want to row back from.
“Arab leaders also need to be able to tell their own peoples that something is changing, and a new chapter is opening, one where there is a sincere effort on all sides to calm down conflict. But they need to hear that Israel is capable of thinking in terms of changing the direction it has been on in recent years,” he adds.
That doesn’t mean Israel should or can rush into revived negotiations over a two-state solution, he cautioned. Getting back to the era of when he was negotiating with Arafat might not be possible, for a very long time.
“History does not repeat itself. So I do not think that something exactly like that can be repeated. But as Mark Twain used to say, history can rhyme.”
He added: “It won’t happen quickly, and it will take time. Trust on all sides has gone – the distrust has only deepened.”
