Israel orders mass 'evacuation' from Northern Gaza, humanitarian crisis certain to ensue

[loomer]

The issue of what happened and who did it at the hospital continues to get cloudier.

Unfortunately, it looks like it won't be the only hospital to be hit by the end, since the IDF's been bombing the shit out of areas immediately surrounding other facilities.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The IDF can take as much time as it wants, the longer they pound the area from above and cut off things like food and water, the more conditions in the strip deteriorate and the the weaker the enemy gets when they do decide to move in. That's the cold logic the Israelis are using.

[Broomstick]

Yes, I understand that.

Pity about the 2 million other people in Gaza, and the hostages, and anyone else. Netanyahu's crowd have stated that destroying Hamas is the goal and absolutely everything else is secondary. They don't care how many people they have to hurt, maim, or kill to do that.

[loomer]

The latest on Al-Ahli is that it... remains a muddle of uncertainty.

[LadyTevar]

BBC Verify is also taking second and third looks at the blast.

Gaza hospital blast: What does new analysis tell us?
The main things they're finding/not finding:
Notable lack of weapon fragments so far
the blast left only a small crater, based on evidence so far, it was difficult to differentiate whether it was caused by an artillery shell, a mortar or a rocket - it could potentially be any of them.
CCTV, amateur footage, and feeds from Al Jazeera and Israel's Channel 12 show that, in the minute before the hospital blast, there were at least two separate bursts of rockets in the area.

[loomer]

B'Tselem has put out an excellent statement outlining their position regarding proportionality and the duty to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is particularly timely as is indicating that it intends to strike the Dar Al-Shifa hospital on the grounds that Hamas has its control center under it. There's another allged recording explicitly claiming that the HQ is under there that I expect analysts will have strong opinions on.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

B'Tselem has put out an excellent statement outlining their position regarding proportionality and the duty to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is particularly timely as is indicating that it intends to strike the Dar Al-Shifa hospital on the grounds that Hamas has its control center under it. There's another allged recording explicitly claiming that the HQ is under there that I expect analysts will have strong opinions on.

Israel will reveal what they consider unnecessary, far as I can see they have a number of options depending on if they want to capture said command centres (and any intelligence they contain) or destroy them- air assault/drop/strike, because it's close to the coast the harbour would be an ideal place to land amphibious troops to support the guys coming in by air if the Israelis are concerned that the beaches have been mined.

[loomer]

Well, that's the tricky bit. The IDF has the responsibility to determine what is and is not unnecessary and disproportionate harm... but they don't have the sole right. It is, and will remain, a matter of facts and international consensus.

Today, the communications blackout has escalated with the fighting. There's a very good chance we won't know the full extent of what happens for months after the fact, and by then a lot of evidence can be hidden - though it usually comes out sooner or later.

[loomer]

An Anti-Palestinian Crackdown Across Europe

On Saturday, London held its biggest ever pro-Palestine march—one of the ten biggest demonstrations in British history—which drew between 100,000 and 300,000 people. “When the government and opposition are abandoning Palestinians, it’s important to show them that the world cares,” Johnnie Bickett, who attended the march in London, told Jewish Currents. The London march was only one of several protests this weekend where tens of thousands took to the streets of Europe’s capital cities to protest in solidarity with Palestinians. According to Alice Garcia, advocacy and communications officer for the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), which defends Palestinian rights advocates in court in the European Union and the United Kingdom, “the [pro-Palestine] movement is growing,” with “demonstrations getting bigger and more frequent.”

But as the protests have grown, so has the repression against them. Since Israel declared war on Hamas after the group killed over 1,400 Israelis on October 7th, most European governments have given the country a carte blanche to embark on what experts have called a genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli bombings have already killed at least 7,000 Palestinians, leading to immense public pushback that has been met with a far-reaching crackdown on pro-Palestinian expression. In the past weeks, France, Germany, Hungary, and Austria have all banned protests in solidarity with Palestine, arresting those who defy the order. Meanwhile, British politicians and media have ramped up their attempts to delegitimize such protests, treating Palestinian flags and slogans as threats to public safety.

In addition to official bans, there has been a rash of smaller-scale efforts to silence pro-Palestine activists via firings, event cancellations, and even criminal charges. “There is an unprecedented wave of anti-Palestinian racism,” said Garcia, who noted that the repression is animated in part by right-wing officials using this moment “as an opportunity to advance their own political agenda of anti-immigrant policies.” Across Europe, Garcia said, such leaders are “cracking down on the right to protest, advancing the war on terror with a ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative,” noting: “We have never been so overwhelmed by requests for legal support and reports of incidents.” Garcia said that so far, Germany has seen the greatest number of cases of repression, followed by France and the UK.


Germany has long held an ardently pro-Israel political line: In 2008, then-chancellor Angela Merkel declared that ensuring Israel’s security was part of Germany’s Staatsraison, or reason for existence, a way of atoning for the crimes of the Holocaust. Germany has lived up to that commitment by providing decades of diplomatic and material support to an increasingly right-wing Jewish state—and by restricting criticism of Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. In 2019, the German parliament passed a resolution explicitly declaring the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement antisemitic. For the last two years, the police have banned Nakba Day protests in Berlin. German activists say these dynamics have now intensified. On October 12th, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—who visited Tel Aviv last week for a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—gave a speech to parliament announcing a ban on “all activities and organizations supporting Hamas,” which he noted is listed as a terrorist organization in Germany. His interior minister, Nancy Faeser, went further, threatening to deport any immigrants who are found to support Hamas.

Despite the stated focus on Hamas, however, in practice the German government is targeting all forms of pro-Palestine activism. On October 13th, the Education Ministry recommended banning the keffiyeh—the Palestinian scarf—in schools, citing “a threat to school peace.” Meanwhile, Berlin police have banned almost every rally in solidarity with Gaza since October 7th—whether organized by Palestinians, Jews, or other allies—on the basis that such protests could “potentially incite antisemitic hate and violence.” On October 14th, the police banned a “Peace in the Middle East” demonstration at the last moment, violently cracking down on protesters who rallied anyway. That same day, police also canceled a Jewish-led demonstration against violence in the Middle East, warning that the rally could include “hateful, antisemitic calls” and the “glorification of violence.” Wieland Hoban, the chairman of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace between Israel and Palestine—the anti-Zionist Jewish group that had organized the latter demonstration—described the police’s letter relaying the cancellation as “a copy-and-paste of what they’ve used for the last two years, since they’ve regularly started banning demos.” He noted that the letter included familiar language speculating about “the emotional Palestinian community” and “the likelihood of acts of violence,” which he called “racist terminology that is used exclusively against Arab communities.” Such police repression of Palestine activists was not confined to Berlin; cities like Mannheim, Munich, and Frankfurt also saw protests outlawed, with local courts managing to overturn such bans only in rare cases. Indeed, German police have zeroed in on pro-Palestine protests so indiscriminately that some demonstrators are registering their marches with oblique names like “Decolonize: Against Global Oppression” in order to be able to protest without police repression.

German media outlets have portrayed some of the protests, including an October 18th one in Berlin’s largest Palestinian neighborhood of Neukölln, as “riots.” But while some protestors did indeed pelt police with stones and set fire to cars, Ben Mauk, a journalist who was present at the Neukölln rally, told Jewish Currents that the police response was far more violent. Mauk recalled that police showed up in full riot gear, intimidating protesters and beating up at least one before turning to pepper spray people filming the incident, including Mauk. “I’ve never felt so unsafe in my own neighborhood,” Mauk said. “I’ve lived here for nine years, and I’ve never seen anything like this—it looked like militarization or an occupying force.” He noted that Berlin police have also violently repressed completely peaceful protests elsewhere in the city, stamping out candles at vigils for the hundreds of Palestinian killed at Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital, for example. “Banning expressions of grief for people in Gaza is making Germany less safe, for Jews and for Muslims,” Mauk said.

Artists, journalists, and public figures have also faced repercussions for speaking out about Palestine, or simply for being Palestinian. Since the German parliament banned BDS in 2019, a wide range of German cultural organizations have effectively blacklisted critics of Israel—censure that has largely affected Black and brown scholars and artists, a trend that appears to be accelerating. On October 13, the Frankfurt Book Fair announced that it would postpone an October 20th award ceremony for Palestinian author Adania Shibli “due to the war in Israel.” Media outlets, including the Bavarian Broadcasting Company, the public European cultural channel Arte, and the talk show Late Night Berlin, likewise canceled contributors and guests over pro-Palestine speech. The Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin canceled a play—The Situation, by Israeli Austrian writer Yael Ronen, which deals with the reverberations of Israel/Palestine politics in Berlin—because, the theater said, “Hamas’s terror attack puts us on Israel’s side.” Meanwhile, the soccer club Mainz suspended player Anwar El Ghazi for posting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on Instagram. And the House of Poetry, a cultural center in Berlin, called off the launch event of a poetry anthology featuring Arab and Palestinian artists. While the cultural center told Jewish Currents that the event had not been canceled, merely postponed due to budgetary constraints, the editor of the anthology, Palestinian Swedish poet Ghayath Almadhoun, saw a clear act of repression that he found reminiscent of his time living under a repressive regime in Syria. “Ironically, I fled Syria in 2008 because of censorship,” he quipped on Instagram.


In France, authorities have long been “seeking a pretext to accelerate a crackdown” on Palestine activism, according to Pierre Motin, the advocacy officer for the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine. In 2021, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin asked the French police to outlaw Palestine protests, leading to a ban in some cities. In 2022, Darmanin further tried to ban two local pro-Palestine groups, Collectif Palestine Vaincra from Toulouse and Comité Action Palestine from Bordeaux, in a decision that was later overturned by the courts; he also pushed several institutions to cancel events with exiled Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri.

Now, “Darmanin is sensing an opportunity to be more repressive to social movements and Muslim communities,” one independent French journalist who covers Israel/Palestine—and who requested anonymity due to fear of repression—told Jewish Currents, noting the minister’s authoritarian politics. On October 12th, Darmanin announced that pro-Palestine protests would be banned outright throughout France, citing a potential disruption to “public order”; he also threatened to deport foreign nationals who participated in such actions. But across the country, including in Paris, Strasbourg, and Lyon, activists proceeded to host demonstrations, even in the face of a heavy police response. (In Paris, they were met with water cannons and tear gas.) [ed: I mean... I'm pretty sure if you tell the French not to demonstrate you'll get more people there just because they were told not to.]

Not all French authorities have backed Darmanin’s campaign of repression. On October 19th, the Conseil d’État—which acts as France’s supreme court for administrative justice—ruled against Darmanin’s blanket ban, saying that it would be up to individual precincts to shut down protests that might lead to “civil disorder.” Following the ruling, around 15,000 people held the first authorized protest in Paris, while thousands gathered in other cities across France. However, French police still say they will not approve a larger Paris demonstration on October 28th, alleging that the organizers, Association France-Palestine Solidarity, have made comments that “suggest they could support Hamas.”


The repressive dynamics in Germany and France have many parallels in the UK. On October 10th, the British Home Secretary Suella Braverman sent a letter to police in England and Wales encouraging them to consider whether waving a Palestinian flag in certain contexts could be “intended to glorify acts of terrorism” and therefore unlawful, and whether chants such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine with be free” could amount to racial aggravation and therefore constitute a criminal offense. (The police have since said that the slogan would not amount to a criminal offense at a demonstration, but could be deemed unlawful if chanted “outside a synagogue or Jewish school, or directly at a Jewish person or group intended to intimidate.”)

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister James Cleverly explicitly told pro-Palestine demonstrators to stay at home, while the opposition Labor Party urged lawmakers and members to avoid attending demonstrations. Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has also threatened to expel foreigners who commit antisemitic acts or praise Hamas. Given the loud chorus of conservative politicians, media outlets, and establishment Jewish groups decrying pro-Palestine protests as “pro-Hamas” and anti-Jewish, civil liberties advocates worry that such policies could be used to target Palestine activists more broadly. Katy Watts, a lawyer at the civil rights group Liberty, framed officials’ comments discouraging protests as “part of a wider campaign to make it harder for us to exercise our rights and stand up to power” and as an effort to create “confusion about the law and uncertainty around the consequences people might face for taking to the streets.”

According to Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, pro-Israel groups and mainstream media are also trying to delegitimize the protests by conflating Palestine solidarity rallies with a separate fringe protest by the Salafist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, and by treating a handful of signs at the main protest—which, for example, expessed explicit support for Hamas, or depicted Netanyahu as Adolf Hitler—as representative of the entire action. In a particularly stark misrepresentation, the counter-extremism chief in the Home Office claimed that the solidarity protests were “stirred up” by a network of Iran and Hamas activists in the UK. “There’s an intent to frame the whole protest in this way,” Jamal said, instead of “listening to what the organizers actually said.” He pointed out that the speakers actually invoked “international law and human rights” as a guiding principle for the protest, and that his own speech emphasized the importance of fighting antisemitism as part of a broader anti-racist politics. Jamal said that the government and mainstream media’s “willful failure to understand [the protest’s message] amounts to anti-Palestinian racism—an assumption that Palestinians must be harboring barbaric and antisemitic motivations.” He added that these responses feed “the broader campaign to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism” and to “associate Palestine activism with terrorism.”

As they have elsewhere in Europe, the UK’s official crackdowns on Palestine solidarity have been accompanied by a chilling of pro-Palestine expression in the wider cultural sphere. On October 20th, Liverpool Hope University canceled a lecture by Israeli British historian Avi Shlaim after members of the local Jewish community expressed concern that Shlaim would be too critical of Israel. Similar cancellations have taken place in many other parts of the UK, sometimes at the behest of police.

Thus far, this wave of repression has not kept people from joining pro-Palestine demonstrations in enormous numbers. The record-breaking march that took place in London on October 21st was largely peaceful, with only ten people being arrested for public order offenses such as shooting a firework or assaulting an emergency worker. But although the protests are continuing, Jamal expressed concern about what will come next. “I never feared we would not be allowed to march, but that’s becoming a little bit more fragile,” he said. “I fear it will become more like Germany.”


As governments and civil society organizations across Europe move to constrain pro-Palestine speech, concerns over Jewish safety are frequently being marshaled as a justification. In France, for example, officials have pointed out that some of the protests against Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza spiraled into attacks on local Jewish institutions, with some using this precedent to justify their repressive actions. In the UK, Home Secretary Suella Braverman likewise said that her crackdown on pro-Palestine chants and symbols is necessary to ensure the “safety of our Jewish communities.”

This rhetoric comes as Jews in Europe are experiencing a real surge in antisemitic incidents. In Germany, for example, a synagogue was firebombed and Jewish homes were daubed with the Star of David, while in the UK, a Jewish school has been vandalized. In France, graffiti reading “killing Jews is a duty” has appeared outside a stadium in southwest France, alongside other incidents such as a crowd gathering to shout threats at a synagogue, and a Jewish high-school student being accosted by peers calling out antisemitic slurs.

However, the officials and organizations charged with tracking this upswell tend not to distinguish between acts that target Jews and those that protest Israel, making it difficult to measure the scope of the problem. In the UK, the Community Security Trust (CST), a leading anti-antisemitism NGO, has reported an unprecedented spike in cases of anti-Jewish attacks. But the cases cited on the CST’s website reflect a conflation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism, featuring reports of protestors shouting “free Palestine” at Jews alongside social media calls to send “big nosed Jews” to gas chambers. (CST did not respond to Jewish Currents’s request to see its full list of antisemitic incidents.) The same organization has also referred to the “from the river to the sea” chant as “genocidal,” and has called on police to “make arrests, not excuses” at pro-Palestine protests. Similar dynamics are at work in France, where Darmanin has made it clear that he sees anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism.

Progressive critics of Israel worry that by using genuine cases of antisemitism to crack down on Muslims, European governments are undermining the safety of both groups. Emily Hilton, the UK director of Diaspora Alliance—a progressive organization that seeks to fight antisemitism and its weaponization—told Jewish Currents that while attacks on Jews are “evoking historical trauma” in the community, politicians who “conflate Jews and Israel, Palestinians and Hamas” have not helped address such feelings productively. Instead, she said, “we have to help people better understand the difference between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and not create a competition between Palestinian lives and Jewish safety.”

- bolding mine for emphasis.

The conflation is an ongoing factor all over the place. The US senate has passed a motion to condemn pro-Hamas protests but does not distinguish between pro-Hamas and pro-Palestine protest, and while I often have a bone to pick with The Intercept, I think this article does a pretty reasonable job of outlining the current chilling effect. The conflation of all anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is deliberately intended to send a message and suppress pro-Palestine sentiment, and there is no relief coming from the Senate and House. DeSantis, for instance, has demanded Florida universities shut down all pro-Palestine student clubs.

To round off with some from today, Jewish Voices for Peace is continuing to protest and call for a ceasefire, with arrests following (including a few State politicians and celebrities, and if reports from people there are accurate, Rabbis.) It remains to be seen who'll be charged (if anyone) and with what. In Denver, the protests at Golda Meir's house are going to be worth keeping an eye on one way or another.

Edit Because of course it would pop on my feed right after I hit post... Four Australian Jewish organizations have issued a call for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation. As Australia was one of the handful of no votes for the UN resolution, I expect we may also see a push to delegitimize this speech.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Sir Keir Starmer is coming under pressure from within the Labour Party to call for a ceasefire. Surely they must know that as leader of the opposition it would be a worthless and futile endeavour even if he did do that.

[loomer]

The point of that would be to apply pressure on the sitting government by making noise - the same reason shadow ministers do anything at all.

Unfortunately, it looks like the rhetoric of Nakba is intensifying.

...Titled "You wanted war, wait for the great Nakba," the Arabic-language leaflets were addressed to "the enemies in the Jewish bank," and warned Palestinians that it was "their last chance to flee to Jordan in an orderly fashion before we forcefully expel you from our holy lands bequeathed to us by God."

The leaflets were found on cars near the Yakir Junction, on Palestinian farm lands north of the Israeli settlement of Ariel, the head of the Deir Istiya council, Firas Diab, said. Earlier that day, settlers drove into the village's olive groves and pelted the farmers with stones. Over the last few days, the locations and photographs of Palestinian olive groves as well as harvesting times have been posted on settlers' WhatsApp groups...

[Zaune]

Sir Keir Starmer is coming under pressure from within the Labour Party to call for a ceasefire. Surely they must know that as leader of the opposition it would be a worthless and futile endeavour even if he did do that.

Undoubtedly, but him apparently making excuses for the IDF cutting off water and power and refusing to allow food or medical supplies to be brought in is not a good look.

We expect that from the Tories at this point: Complaining about them being callous is like criticising the Front for being racist. But a Labour leader should know better, and do better.

And that's as much as I'm saying on that subject, because it'd be too easy to cause a derail from there.

[Elfdart]

The IDF can take as much time as it wants, the longer they pound the area from above and cut off things like food and water, the more conditions in the strip deteriorate and the the weaker the enemy gets when they do decide to move in. That's the cold logic the Israelis are using.

That's the same "cold logic" that got Arthur Seyss-Inquart hanged at Nuremberg.

Sir Keir Starmer is coming under pressure from within the Labour Party to call for a ceasefire. Surely they must know that as leader of the opposition it would be a worthless and futile endeavour even if he did do that.

Undoubtedly, but him apparently making excuses for the IDF cutting off water and power and refusing to allow food or medical supplies to be brought in is not a good look.

We expect that from the Tories at this point: Complaining about them being callous is like criticising the Front for being racist. But a Labour leader should know better, and do better.

And that's as much as I'm saying on that subject, because it'd be too easy to cause a derail from there.

Starmer is in his current position because he gleefully knifed Corbyn in the back (like American shit-libs, New Labour would much rather lose to the Tories than win with Lefties in charge) and purged left-leaning Jews from the party. You'd have to back to the Middle Ages to find a leader in the British Isles who eliminated Jews from public life with the gusto of Keir Starmer.

B'Tselem has put out an excellent statement outlining their position regarding proportionality and the duty to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is particularly timely as is indicating that it intends to strike the Dar Al-Shifa hospital on the grounds that Hamas has its control center under it. There's another allged recording explicitly claiming that the HQ is under there that I expect analysts will have strong opinions on.

Between the "OMG! 40 Beheaded Babies!" hoax and the fake audio used by IDF camp followers to justify blowing up hospitals, any claim from the Israeli, US or UK governments should be dismissed out of hand. Bad Empanada sums it up well HERE and HERE (16:19).

[Elfdart]

So... the Arab Muslims are disappointed in Biden and threatening to never vote for him again. Sure, it's a free country, those that are citizens can vote however they like.

But if it comes down to Biden vs. Trump again are those same Muslim Arabs really going to vote for the anti-Muslim Trump? You know, the guy who wanted to ban all immigration from majority Muslim nations. Someone much more pro-Israel, pro-Netanyahu than Biden ever was or likely will ever be?

Sometimes you decide you've had enough of someone knifing you in the back and decide to take your chances with someone who not only comes to stab you from the front, but also refrains from adding insult to injury by pretending to be your friend. I doubt the number of Muslims nationwide who vote GOP next year will amount to a fraction of the number of Jews For Buchanan in Florida back in 2000.

However.... I'll go vote for the paper-hanger because I DO NOT WANT the world burned down.

Because refusing to vote just gives the worst option more power.

Refusing to vote does yield the space to those who do, but at the same time, the party refusing to do anything to secure a voter yields the voter to those who do. A party can't tell people to go fuck themselves, and then expect those same people to turn around and vote said party in.

If the Democrats want more votes from the Arab Muslim community in 2024, then they should work for them.

Nah, pissing all over those who vote Democrat and telling them they have nowhere else to go on election day worked like charm. Just ask President Hillary Clinton!

https://twitter.com/lookner/status/1715794187809939847

Bloomberg: Israel dropped new leaflets on Gaza City today, saying in part, "whoever chooses not to evacuate would likely be designated as a member of a terrorist organization."

Trying to re-enact the Free Fire Zones of Vietnam? How convenient: Those who flee will lose their homes permanently (Nakba 2: Electric Boogaloo) and those who can't (or won't) are exterminated.

[loomer]

Yeah, a very big grain of salt is required for claims from any of the major actors in this conflict.

Some people with extraordinary courage and strength continue to call for a ceasefire: Israeli Peace Activists Who Lost Loved Ones in the Hamas Massacre Stand Their Ground

Something Yael Noy says in it struck me particularly strongly:

We have no choice but to bear witness. You have to hear the stories and stay human, and I don’t know how that’s possible.

[His Divine Shadow]

Keir stepped in it big time. Loads of resignations and grumblings even despite all the purging of anything remotely leftish in Labour he has done. And there have been protest marches topping 200,000 in london:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231 ... t-of-gaza/

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Two things of note:
Israel says military operations have 'expanded' in Gaza as fighting continues

Israel has released new images and videos of what it said shows the "expansion" of its forces in Gaza.

A female Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by Hamas has been released during ground operations in the strip.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is among a number of aid agencies which have warned Israel it would be "impossible" to evacuate the al-Quds hospital, which is currently sheltering 14,000 people.

Israel has said 239 hostages are being held in Gaza - four of which have been released.

More families have paid tribute to the victims of the Hamas attacks on October 7 after the deaths of the loved ones were confirmed by the Israeli military.

Gaza's Health Ministry has said the Palestinian death toll has passed 8,300 - most of them women and children - while more than 1,400 people died in Israel during attacks by Hamas - including at least 310 soldiers - according to the Israeli government.

Israel says it has "expanded" its military operations in Gaza as its forces continue to push deeper into the territory's north.

On Monday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) released a number of photos of what it said shows the "expansion of IDF ground operations in the Gaza Strip".

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, confirmed military operations had been expanded, but refused to comment on specific deployments.

A female Israeli soldier, Private Ori Megidish, who had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 has been released during the ground operations, the IDF said on Monday.

In a statement, the military added: "The soldier was medically checked, is doing well, and has met with her family.”

The proscribed terror group Hamas, which continues to hold hundreds of hostages in Gaza, released a video on Monday, purporting to show three women it is holding captive.

In the clip, one of the women directs a statement at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying "you were supposed to free us all". It is unclear if the woman is talking freely in the video.

Putin calls security meeting after mob swarms airport looking for Israelis
Footage released by the Israel Defence Forces purports to show soldiers and armour operating within the Gaza Strip

The woman adds the hostages are being held by Hamas because of Mr Netanyahu's "political, security and military failures".

Tributes paid to British and German Hamas victims

The parents of a Hamas victim have paid tribute to their daughter who was found "cuddled together" with her two children, also found dead in their home.

British Lianne Sharabi, 48, and her two teenage daughters, Yahel and Noiya, were killed when militants rampaged Kibbutz Be'eri.

Speaking to the BBC, Gill and Pete Brisley said Lianne "was doing what a mother would do - holding her babies in her arms."

They shared that their "wonderful" daughter had moved to Israel at the age of 19, where she met a man and built her life.

Describing her grandchildren, Mrs Brisley said Yahel had "so much energy", while Noiya was more quiet, but very affectionate, very caring and compassionate."

"We feel numb... it is what it is, we can't change it. We must get through it."

Meanwhile, the mother of German-Israeli Shani Louk, 22, said she has been informed of her daughter's death by the Israeli military.

Ricarda Louk told German news agency dpa on Monday her daughter’s body hasn’t been found, but a part of her skull bone was located and submitted for a DNA test.

Louk believes her daughter died on October 7, when she was at a music festival in southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas terrorists.

What is the current situation in Gaza?

Israel's military says it has struck 600 targets in recent days, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching sites.

It comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the conflict with Hamas has entered its "second stage".

Meanwhile, an evacuation order for a Gaza City hospital - which is sheltering 14,000 people - has been described as "impossible" to carry out without endangering patient lives.

The WHO is among the aid agencies to issue the warning to Israel, after the Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received warnings to immediately evacuate the al-Quds hospital.

Israel's military has yet to comment on the hospital evacuation order, but say they are targeting networks of Hamas tunnels that lie underneath hospitals, schools and mosques in Gaza.

Charity ActionAid UK have released a statement explaining how water scarcity is affecting Gazans, especially mothers and children: "Without clean water mothers cannot breastfeed newborn babies; people are drinking sea water and cannot wash; risk of dehydration and disease is growing."

Somaya, a pregnant woman sheltering in a UN school in Gaza, told ActionAid: "This water is salty sea water; we have to drink it because we can't find water. And these little children, we can't clean them or bathe them because we are afraid they will get sick."

As the death toll from the conflict soars, the charity Save the Children has said the number of children killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 has exceeded the total killed in armed conflict every year globally since 2019.

Civilians in Gaza were asked to "surrender" by Israel's military as part of a leaflet drop made on Sunday.

Written in Arabic, the leaflets told civilians to lay down all their weapons, put their hands up, wave white flags, and follow instructions from the Israeli military.

Israel - without presenting any evidence - has also continued to allege that Hamas has built underground bunkers below Gaza's largest hospital - the Shifa hospital - and accused the group of using civilians as human shields. Hamas has denied the claims.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden's security adviser has suggested Hamas could be preventing British nationals from leaving Gaza.

Jake Sullivan said Egypt and Israel were prepared to allow foreign nationals to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing - the only border point in the territory that is not controlled by Israel.

But he said Hamas had not agreed to terms that would grant foreigners an opportunity to depart for Egypt and reach safety.

Dagestan: Putin calls security meeting after mob swarms Russian airport

Vladimir Putin has called a meeting of security and law officials in Moscow after a mob chanting antisemitic slogans stormed an airport in Dagestan after a flight from Israel landed there.

Hundreds of angry men, some carrying banners with antisemitic slogans, rushed onto the tarmac of the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, on Sunday night, looking for Israeli passengers on the flight from Tel Aviv.

Authorities closed the airport and police converged on the facility.

Video on social media shows some in the crowd waving Palestinian flags and others trying to overturn a police car.

Antisemitic slogans can be heard being shouted and some in the crowd allegedly examined the passports of arriving passengers, apparently in an attempt to identify those who were Israeli.

Videos shared on social media shows some in the crowd waving Palestinian flags and others trying to overturn a police car

Dagestan’s Ministry of Health said more than 20 people were injured, with two in critical condition. It said the injured included police officers and civilians.

Sixty people were detained in the unrest, it is not clear if charges had been filed against any of them.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it opened a criminal probe on charges of organising mass unrest.

While voicing support for Palestinians in Gaza, the regional Dagestani government appealed to citizens to remain calm and not take part in such protests.

Dagestan is a semi-autonomous region in southern Russia that borders Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the security meeting will discuss “attempts by the West to use the events in the Middle East to divide the (Russian) society.”

“It is well known and obvious that yesterday’s event around the Makhachkala airport is largely the result of outside interference, including information influence from outside.”

Russia’s civil aviation authority said the Makhachkala airport resumed operations at 2pm on Monday, adding that flights from Tel Aviv to Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody, a city in the neighbouring Stavropol region, will be redirected to other cities.

In a statement on Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel "expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to protect the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews wherever they may be and to act resolutely against the rioters and against the wild incitement directed against Jews and Israelis."

Mr Netanyahu’s office added the Israeli ambassador to Russia was working with authorities to keep Israelis and Jews safe.

White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US "vigorously condemns the anti-Semitic protests in Dagestan."

In a tweet on X, she said: "The US unequivocally stands with the entire Jewish community as we witness a worldwide surge in antisemitism. There is never any excuse or justification for antisemitism."

The Supreme Mufti of Dagestan, Sheikh Akhmad Afandi, called on residents to stop the unrest at the airport saying the issue "cannot be resolved in this way."

Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov promised consequences for anyone who took part in the violence saying the actions at the airport were "a gross violation of the law."

He called the protests a "knife in the backs of those who gave their lives for the security of the Motherland," referring to the 1999 war in Dagestan and troops currently fighting in Ukraine.

[Elfdart]

Mark Ames points out that the proprietor of the TV station that ginned up the mob in Dagestan in an exile living in Kiev.

Dagestan Telegram channel that incited antisemitic mobs is linked to Ilya Ponomarev, Russian anti-Kremlin exile in Kyiv who has worked closely with Ukraine's military-intel on destabilization ops in Russia (e.g., neo-Nazi Russian Volunteer Corps attacks)

There's more at the Financial Times, though Ponomarev now claims he doesn't own the station.

[Ralin]

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the security meeting will discuss “attempts by the West to use the events in the Middle East to divide the (Russian) society.”

“It is well known and obvious that yesterday’s event around the Makhachkala airport is largely the result of outside interference, including information influence from outside.”

Indeed. I can't imagine any other explanation for violent antisemitism in Russia.

[bilateralrope]

Palestinian PM: we will not run Gaza without solution for West Bank

Exclusive: Mohammad Shtayyeh calls for a ‘comprehensive, peaceful vision’ and ceasefire in Gaza

Julian Borger and Sufian Taha in Ramallah
Sun 29 Oct 2023 20.10 GMT

The Palestinian Authority will not return to governing Gaza after the Israel-Hamas conflict without a comprehensive agreement that includes the West Bank in a Palestinian state, the authority’s prime minister has said.

Israeli civilian and military officials have said their plan for the end of the Gaza war is to have some form of transitional authority rule the territory, perhaps involving Arab states, leading to the restoration of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was ousted from Gaza in a 2007 Hamas coup.

But Mohammad Shtayyeh, who has been prime minister since 2019, said the PA would not cooperate without a return to a genuine peace process resulting in two sovereign states.

“To have the Palestinian Authority go to Gaza and run the affairs of Gaza without a political solution for the West Bank, as if this Palestinian Authority is going aboard an F-16 or an Israeli tank?” Shtayyeh said. “I don’t accept it. Our president [Mahmoud Abbas] does not accept it. None of us will accept it.”

“I think what we need is a comprehensive, peaceful vision,” the prime minister said in an interview in his office in Ramallah, on the West Bank. “The West Bank needs a solution, and then link Gaza to it within the framework of a two-state solution.”

The first priority, Shtayyeh said, was to stop the bombing of Gaza, as well as violence on the West Bank, in which he said 110 Palestinians had been killed over the past three weeks by Israeli security forces and settlers.

The Gaza health ministry has said that the death toll there had topped 8,000. The ministry is run by Hamas, and the US president, Joe Biden, has questioned the accuracy of its figures, but Shtayyeh said the toll had been verified with names and identity numbers.

About 1,400 Israelis were killed in the Hamas raid on settlements near the Gaza border, and more than 220 people were taken hostage and are being held within the coastal strip.

After three weeks of aerial bombardment, Israel launched a ground assault on Gaza on Friday night as part of a campaign aimed at politically destroying Hamas and its military, an offensive that Israeli officials have said they expect to be long and gruelling.

The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant that it has no intention of returning to the direct rule of Gaza, which it did before 2005. Shtayyeh argued that the Israeli need for someone else to run the territory in place of Hamas gives the international community a rare degree of leverage to return to a two-state solution that Netanyahu has systematically dismantled during his time in office.

“The question for us – the Israelis, the Americans, the Europeans, everybody – is, how can we make out of this disaster an opportunity for peace?” he said.

The PA has called for an emergency Arab summit, which Shtayyeh hoped would take place on 10 November, to restore unity on the creation of a functional Palestinian state.

In 2020 Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed the Abraham accords, normalising relations with Israel, requiring political progress for the Palestinians as a precondition. At the time of the Hamas attack, the US was trying to encourage Saudi Arabia to agree its own normalisation deal, but its leaders had insisted that any agreement would have to bring substantive benefits for the Palestinians.

Shtayyeh predicted that would be a common Arab position, and noted that the Bahraini foreign minister was visiting the West Bank on Sunday for the first time since it signed the Abraham accord.

“They are talking to us, and we and they want to engage,” he said. “We’re talking to the Moroccans, we’re talking to the Bahrainis, and of course we are ready to talk to the Emiratis. We have excellent working relations with the Saudis and so on with Jordan and with the Egyptians.”

He said there was a growing realisation among neighbouring Arab countries that the region cannot be at peace without a political solution for the Palestinians. “With all frankness, the Arabs are really sick of us,” Shtayyeh said. “They want to see a solution for the Palestine question because we are a pain for them.”

For a lasting peace settlement, he said, the US administration would have to show leadership, noting that Biden was the first US president in recent times to come to office without a Middle East peace initiative.

“He didn’t even appoint a peace envoy, and he made promises that have never been fulfilled,” he said. “He says he is opposing settlements, but what did he do? He continued funding Israel. You’re for two states, but Israel is destroying it every day, and what? You do nothing. You said you would reopen the American consulate in Jerusalem … Now your term is going to finish and you didn’t do it … And it’s created anger.”

“I think now is the moment for the American president [and] for Europe to resume leadership and say: ‘We are ready for the day after and a comprehensive solution and not a partial solution,’” he said.

Such a comprehensive solution would include Palestinian elections in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and an Israeli government without Netanyahu, who Shtayyeh said “is not our partner – he doesn’t see us as partners”.

There is also growing anger on the West Bank directed at the PA, which has long faced allegations of corruption and cronyism. Its weakness and inability to defend Palestinian lives has been highlighted by the bloodshed since 7 October. Shtayyeh insisted, however, that it would never abandon non-violence to regain popularity.

“[Abbas] can be popular in one minute,” the prime minister said. “He can say: ‘OK, I order the Palestinian security forces to shoot at the Israelis.’ But he is a realistic man.”

However, Shtayyeh acknowledged that anger was mounting rapidly among Palestinians, and that the situation on the West Bank was “boiling” and becoming “seriously dangerous”, leaving the PA stuck between a furious population and a violent and callous Israeli government.

“We are caught between the rock and the hammer,” he said.

At least someone is attempting to find a long term solution to this conflict.

[loomer]

I've been waiting to see if anything new would come out about the bombing of Jabaiya camp, but in the absence of anything further, it is very, very, very difficult to see how this can be construed to be anything other than a disproportionate strike. The mental element will be very hard to disprove under the circumstances. In this context, I actually think the IDF's warnings may work against them, as it seems to indicate a willingness to disregard the principle of proportionality in strikes like this one because 'they were warned'.

[His Divine Shadow]

Heard an interview in national radio with a 10 year old palestinian boy who survived one of the recent Israeli terrorist attacks.

He was talking calmly about how he dug himself out of the rubble of the house, how his parents, cousins, uncles were dead, but his sister survived, how he found an arm sticking out of of the rubble and pulled it and it came off and blood spurted. All calm and level voice....

[LadyTevar]

Heard an interview in national radio with a 10 year old palestinian boy who survived one of the recent Israeli terrorist attacks.

He was talking calmly about how he dug himself out of the rubble of the house, how his parents, cousins, uncles were dead, but his sister survived, how he found an arm sticking out of of the rubble and pulled it and it came off and blood spurted. All calm and level voice....

Total complete shutdown/shock. A lifetime of cPTSD, for millions of people.
Fuck Hamas for triggering this round. Fuck the current Israeli government for targeting civilians.

And fuck all of the rest of the world for never stepping in to stop the escalation we saw happening over the last 70yrs.

[LadyTevar]

A few quick links

Pentagon acknowledges using Unarmed Drones over Gaza
The confirmation comes after reporters spotted MQ-9 Reapers, usually operated by American special forces, circling Gaza on Flightradar24, a publicly available flight-tracking website.
Unnamed US military officials told the New York Times that the drones were not helping co-ordinate Israeli military action in and around Gaza. Officials told the newspaper that information related to hostage recovery was being passed on to the Israelis.

Hezbollah steps back from All-out War over Gaza, for now
The Hezbollah leader took his time to respond to the past month of bloodletting which has turned the Middle East into a tinder box.
And when Hassan Nasrallah spoke, what he did not say was as important as what he said.
"What's taking place on our front is very important and significant," he said.
"Those who claim that Hezbollah should engage swiftly in an all-out war with the enemy might see what is taking place on the border as minimal. But if look objectively, we will find it sizeable."
He said 57 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in recent weeks.
Predictably, he left the door open for a further escalation.
"I assure you this will not be the end," he said, "this will not be sufficient."
Hassan Nasrallah insisted that the 7 October attacks by Hamas were a "100% Palestinian operation", carried out in great secrecy, concealed even from Hamas's allies.
"It has no relation to any regional or international issues," he said, in effect claiming he did not know and neither did Iran.

[Ralin]

And fuck all of the rest of the world for never stepping in to stop the escalation we saw happening over the last 70yrs.

'The world' is doing a lot of work there. America isn't the only country guilty here, but we're very distinctly the ones with a security council we're committed to using to cover for the country doing the bombing and two aircraft carriers hanging around in the area our president sent to make sure no one else can step in to try and stop it even if they wanted to.