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

[EnterpriseSovereign]

All I can say is, better late than never.

Are you fucking serious? You support more money & arms for Israel so it can better carry out its genocide of the Palestinians?
I don't even know what to say to you, that is how fucked up you are.

I would prefer the Israel money to go on their Iron Dome to replenish their munitions, or does that also count as genocide?

How about you don't say anything at all, you fucking troll.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Then why, pray tell, are you posting that in this thread? I know the Ukraine thread has been locked for the moment, but you already posted the same thing there before that happened. It doesn't mean the same thing posting it here. This thread is about Israel, not Ukraine.

The most disturbing thing is that the three had to be combined to get through Congress at all.

[Solauren]

All I can say is, better late than never.

Are you fucking serious? You support more money & arms for Israel so it can better carry out its genocide of the Palestinians?
I don't even know what to say to you, that is how fucked up you are.

I actually find myself agreeing with Aerius on this one.

Quite frankly, every country in the world should go 'sorry, until your current actions stop, and the current government is removed from power and handed over to Interpol protective custody to face charges for the criminal actions during this action, you get NOTHING'.

Honestly, if Israel needs the aid badly enough, they'd listen for a change.

And if not, offer all citizens in the area a chance to leave Israel/Palastein/Gaza, and let the fanatics fight it out.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

All I can say is, better late than never.

Are you fucking serious? You support more money & arms for Israel so it can better carry out its genocide of the Palestinians?
I don't even know what to say to you, that is how fucked up you are.

I actually find myself agreeing with Aerius on this one.

Quite frankly, every country in the world should go 'sorry, until your current actions stop, and the current government is removed from power and handed over to Interpol protective custody to face charges for the criminal actions during this action, you get NOTHING'.

Honestly, if Israel needs the aid badly enough, they'd listen for a change.

And if not, offer all citizens in the area a chance to leave Israel/Palastein/Gaza, and let the fanatics fight it out.

Basically, demand Israel to stage a coup then?

[Batman]

Deny them support for their genocide. All they have to do is stop attacking Gaza and their neighbours, problem solved. If the current government won't do that, maybe a coup is in order.

[Gandalf]

Basically, demand Israel to stage a coup then?

Netanyahu can stop without it being a coup. It would be policy turnaround, but not a coup.

[Solauren]

Basically, demand Israel to stage a coup then?

Netanyahu can stop without it being a coup. It would be policy turnaround, but not a coup.

Hell, all he'd have to do is call off the attack, and call an election, then step down. That's like, what, a 30 minute press conference?

[Broomstick]

Deny them support for their genocide. All they have to do is stop attacking Gaza and their neighbours, problem solved.

Problem solved for Gaza.

It would not address the systematic oppression of Arabs within Israel proper - see West Bank and Settlers. Such oppression occurs in other parts of Israel as well.

[Broomstick]

Basically, demand Israel to stage a coup then?

Netanyahu can stop without it being a coup. It would be policy turnaround, but not a coup.

Hell, all he'd have to do is call off the attack, and call an election, then step down. That's like, what, a 30 minute press conference?

Yep. That's all has to do.

Then it's off to court with him for a long-delay trial and possibly jail for the rest of his life, which is why he doesn't do that.

[Soontir C'boath]

Yea, you know you're on the wrong side of history when the faculty steps in.

Columbia University faculty members have staged a walkout in support of students arrested and suspended after participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Students established a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at the Ivy League campus in New York City on April 17 to protest Israel's ongoing assault in Gaza and demand Columbia administration divest from Israel-affiliated companies.

Police soon raided the encampment and arrested over 100 students, who were then suspended by the university. The protests continued to grow after the clearout, with some participants putting up tents again over the weekend.

Amid the protests, multiple antisemitic incidents including the harassment of Jewish students have been reported, although students and Columbia officials have claimed that groups from outside the university are to blame.
On Monday, after it was announced that in-person classes were being canceled due to the chaos, a large number of Columbia faculty members walked outside to demonstrate in support of the protesters.

The faculty members did not demonstrate to express their explicit support for the pro-Palestinian cause. Instead, many held signs reading "End Student Suspensions Now," "Hands Off Our Students" and "Restore Faculty Governance."

While it was unclear how many faculty members took part in the pro-student demonstration, images and videos quickly shared to social media suggest that at least several dozen took part.

A Columbia University spokesperson on Monday declined Newsweek's request for comment on the faculty walkout, while sharing a statement that Columbia President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik released earlier in the day.

"During the coming days, a working group of Deans, university administrators and faculty members will try to bring this crisis to a resolution," Shafik said in the statement. "I know that there is much debate about whether or not we should use the police on campus, and I am happy to engage in those discussions."

"Over the past days, there have been too many examples of intimidating and harassing behavior on our campus," she continued. "I hope everyone can take a deep breath, show compassion, and work together to rebuild the ties that bind us together."

During the faculty demonstration, Columbia professor of history Christopher L. Brown condemned Shafik for calling police on the protesters, which led to the encampment being cleared out by officers in riot gear on April 18.

"Thursday, April 18, 2024, will be remembered as a shameful day in Columbia's history," Brown said. "The president's decision to send riot police to pick up peaceful protesters on our campus was unprecedented, unjustified, disproportionate, divisive and dangerous."

"I have no confidence in the president's leadership," he continued. "With what she has said and what she has not said, and with what she has done and what she has not done—she has forfeited the privilege of leading this great university."

Shai Davidai, a Columbia business professor who claims that he was locked out of the school because he is Jewish and opposed to the pro-Palestinian protests, condemned the university's president for a very different reason during a smaller demonstration on Monday.

"President Shafik supports terrorism, that should be the headline of every news media," Davidai said while speaking to a group carrying U.S. and Israel flags. "Because we have terrorist ideology on campus and we have a president that is negotiating with them."

"That makes her a supporter of terrorism," he added. "She should be fired not tomorrow, not tonight [but] today—this very minute."

Anyone who can say the bolded part with a straight face while the IDF drops 2000 pound bombs on women and children should have their humanity questioned.

[Broomstick]

Amid the protests, multiple antisemitic incidents including the harassment of Jewish students have been reported, although students and Columbia officials have claimed that groups from outside the university are to blame.

There is also reason to believe that some anti-protest Jewish people have gone to protests basically to stir up trouble and/or play the victim card. Meanwhile, anti-war Jews ("Not In Our Name") are part of the anti-war demonstrations. There are outside agitators contributing to the problems as well, as there always are.

The faculty members did not demonstrate to express their explicit support for the pro-Palestinian cause. Instead, many held signs reading "End Student Suspensions Now," "Hands Off Our Students" and "Restore Faculty Governance."

I gather they are supporting the right to free speech - these demonstrations are noisy and annoying to those in the area, but we're not talking about riots. Despite the use of riot police.

During the faculty demonstration, Columbia professor of history Christopher L. Brown condemned Shafik for calling police on the protesters, which led to the encampment being cleared out by officers in riot gear on April 18.

"Thursday, April 18, 2024, will be remembered as a shameful day in Columbia's history," Brown said. "The president's decision to send riot police to pick up peaceful protesters on our campus was unprecedented, unjustified, disproportionate, divisive and dangerous."

He's a history professor and doesn't remember the campus protests of the 1960's in the US? "unjustified, disproportionate, divisive and dangerous" but not "unprecedented".

Shai Davidai, a Columbia business professor who claims that he was locked out of the school because he is Jewish and opposed to the pro-Palestinian protests, condemned the university's president for a very different reason during a smaller demonstration on Monday.

"President Shafik supports terrorism, that should be the headline of every news media," Davidai said while speaking to a group carrying U.S. and Israel flags. "Because we have terrorist ideology on campus and we have a president that is negotiating with them."

"That makes her a supporter of terrorism," he added. "She should be fired not tomorrow, not tonight [but] today—this very minute."

Anyone who can say the bolded part with a straight face while the IDF drops 2000 pound bombs on women and children should have their humanity questioned.

As I indicated above, there are two sides to the more confrontational aspects of these protests. Being in favor of fair treatment for Palestinians is not "terrorist ideology". Neither is being anti-war. Neither is talking to people who are protesting.

[Broomstick]

Meanwhile, in New York City's Emergency Seder in the Streets:

We need an exodus from Zionism

This Passover, we don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name
Wed 24 Apr 2024 09.27 EDT
Last modified on Wed 24 Apr 2024 16.37 EDT

I’ve been thinking about Moses, and his rage when he came down from the mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf.

The ecofeminist in me was always uneasy about this story: what kind of God is jealous of animals? What kind of God wants to hoard all the sacredness of the Earth for himself?

But there is a less literal way of understanding this story. It is about false idols. About the human tendency to worship the profane and shiny, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.

That false idol is called Zionism.

Zionism is a false idol that has taken the idea of the promised land and turned it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba.

From the start it has been at war with dreams of liberation. At a Seder it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism equates Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and client states.

From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons.

Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm and it is time that we said clearly: it has always been leading us here.

It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.

We, in these streets for months and months, are the exodus. The exodus from Zionism

It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.

Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value we place on questioning – a practice embedded in the Seder with its four questions asked by the youngest child.

Including the love we have as a people for text and for education.

Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza; the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses; the killing of hundreds of academics, of journalists, of poets – this is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the means of education.

Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call in the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students daring to ask them basic questions, such as: how can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?

The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long.

So tonight we say: it ends here.

Meanwhile meanwhile -- that same evening ended in the arrest of hundreds of Jews protesting the actions of the Israeli government. Brooklyn Seder Protest

As Senator Chuck Schumer of New York prepared for a final vote to pass an aid package that would provide $26 billion to Israel and billions more to Ukraine and Taiwan, approximately 200 protesters were arrested, according to the police, after blocking traffic in his Brooklyn neighborhood on the second night of Passover to call for an end to the United States’ military support of Israel.

Though Mr. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, was in Washington, demonstrators rallied on Tuesday in Grand Army Plaza, one block away from his Brooklyn home, a common site of protests since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. As the sun set, hundreds of people gathered around a circular banner representing a Seder plate, which included the words “Jews say stop arming Israel” alongside images of foods eaten during the Seder meal.

“This will not be a Seder as usual. These are not usual times,” Morgan Bassichis, a member of the progressive group Jewish Voice for Peace, said to attendees.

After a series of speakers addressed the rally, a large portion of the crowd moved into the street between the north edge of Prospect Park and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, blocking the flow of traffic and prompting drivers to lean on their horns. Police officers who had been monitoring the event warned the demonstrators that they would be arrested if they did not move; when they stayed put, officers wielding zip-tie handcuffs moved in and began making arrests. Roughly 200 protesters, some wearing reflective vests over black T-shirts that read “Jews Say Cease Fire Now,” were led away in pairs.

The protest, organized by pro-Palestinian Jewish groups, marked what has been a distinctly different Passover celebration for Jewish people in New York City and beyond, as college campuses and family dinner tables feel the ripple effects of the Israel-Hamas war.

Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said the protest was held during Passover in order to send a message to Mr. Schumer as the Senate moved toward a final vote on aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. Roughly $9 billion of that $95 billion package is dedicated to “worldwide humanitarian aid,” including for civilians in Gaza. (The package later passed in a 79-to-18 vote.)

“Everything in our tradition compels us to bring everything we have to stopping these historic atrocities being done in our names and with our tax dollars,” Ms. Fox said in an interview on Monday.
Image

Mr. Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, recently called for elections to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, once the war winds down. His rebuke of the Jewish state’s leader last month — in a speech in which he also spoke of his love for the state of Israel and his horror at the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 — exposed the widening gap between Israel and the United States, its most important ally, analysts said.

“Senator Schumer just very recently spoke very harshly about Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Senate floor,” Beth Miller, the political director for Jewish Voice for Peace, said at the protest on Tuesday. “For him to do that with one hand, and then on the other hand reward Prime Minister Netanyahu by pushing forward this military funding package, shows that he is not serious about actually shifting U.S. policy to leverage change.”

One attendee, Calvin Harrison, 29, a community organizer who lives in Manhattan, said he was at Grand Army Plaza “because I’m a Jew and I was raised to believe that Judaism is about justice.”

“Passover is a celebration of liberation for the future,” he went on. “We can’t celebrate liberation for ourselves while we’re oppressing Palestinians.”

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Hamas accepts Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal

Hamas says it has accepted a ceasefire proposal brokered by Egypt and Qatar to pause seven months of war with Israel.

On Monday a statement from Hamas's leader Ismail Haniyeh said he had informed Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister over the phone he accepted their proposal.

The two Middle Eastern nations have been mediating months of talks between Israel and Hamas.

There has been no immediate comment from Israel and details of the ceasefire agreement have not been released.

It is not clear whether the deal will meet Hamas’ key demand of bringing about an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal.

The announcement comes hours after Israel ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to begin evacuating.

The order signalled Israel's long-promised invasion of the south where more than a million people were seeking refuge.

Qatar had warned any invasion could damage any ceasefire talks.

Leaflets featuring maps of where refugees were advised to go were airdropped over Gaza by Israeli aircraft.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said that the area demarcated for refugees to flee to is not suitable to meet the basic needs of people there.

Director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, Scott Anderson, described the coastal, western side of Gaza as a “sandy area” with “a lot of beach".

“I know they expanded the area recently, but a lot of that's in Khan Younis which we're still trying to recover from an operation that happened there,” he told CNN.

Israel has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said they need to carry out a ground invasion to defeat the Islamic militant group.

Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi.

He said Israel was preparing a “limited scope operation” and would not say whether this was the beginning of a broader invasion of the city.

Last October Israel did not formally announce the launch of a ground invasion that continued into the current conflict.

The move comes a day after Hamas militants carried out a deadly rocket attack from the area that killed three Israeli soldiers.

Shoshani said Israel published a map of the evacuation area, and that orders were being issued through leaflets dropped from the sky, text messages and radio broadcasts.
He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.

Israel's plan to invade Rafah has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

About 1.4 million Palestinians - more than half of Gaza’s population - are in the town and its surroundings.

Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s attacks on Hamas and now face another move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault.

The people in Gaza live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing UN shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, has repeatedly urged Israel not to carry out the invasion, saying it does not have a credible plan to protect civilians.

But even as the US, Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated last week that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group.

On Sunday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Hamas wasn’t serious about a deal and warned of “a powerful operation in the very near future in Rafah."

His comments came after Hamas attacked Israel’s main crossing point for delivering assistance on Sunday, killing three soldiers.

Shoshani would not say whether the upcoming Rafah operation is a response to Sunday's killing.

He said the incident would have no effect on the amounts of badly needed aid entering Gaza because other crossing points remain operational.
He wouldn't comment, however, on US warnings not to invade and wasn't clear on whether the evacuation was coordinated with Egypt.

Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border, which is supposed to be demilitarised, or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.

[Solauren]

The question is, does Israel accept?

[Elfdart]

How do you know if someone charged with a crime is 100% guilty?

When they start making violent threats against the court and prosecutors -and their families.

Case in point:

Twelve senators signed an open letter threatening the International Criminal Court with military action if they issue arrest warrants for Natanyahu and the other butchers of Gaza.

[Broomstick]

The question is, does Israel accept?

Of course not.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

How do you know if someone charged with a crime is 100% guilty?

When they start making violent threats against the court and prosecutors -and their families.

Case in point:

Twelve senators signed an open letter threatening the International Criminal Court with military action if they issue arrest warrants for Natanyahu and the other butchers of Gaza.

I don't see any threat of "military action" anywhere in that letter, the text makes for interesting reading.

[Broomstick]

How do you know if someone charged with a crime is 100% guilty?

When they start making violent threats against the court and prosecutors -and their families.

Case in point:

Twelve senators signed an open letter threatening the International Criminal Court with military action if they issue arrest warrants for Natanyahu and the other butchers of Gaza.

I'm not entirely clear - are these Israeli senators (do they have senators?) or US senators or some other sort of senator...?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

How do you know if someone charged with a crime is 100% guilty?

When they start making violent threats against the court and prosecutors -and their families.

Case in point:

Twelve senators signed an open letter threatening the International Criminal Court with military action if they issue arrest warrants for Natanyahu and the other butchers of Gaza.

I'm not entirely clear - are these Israeli senators (do they have senators?) or US senators or some other sort of senator...?

US Senators- their names and signatures are listed at the end of the letter. Only some of whom I've heard of before as a Brit.

[Elfdart]

How do you know if someone charged with a crime is 100% guilty?

When they start making violent threats against the court and prosecutors -and their families.

Case in point:

Twelve senators signed an open letter threatening the International Criminal Court with military action if they issue arrest warrants for Natanyahu and the other butchers of Gaza.

I don't see any threat of "military action" anywhere in that letter, the text makes for interesting reading.

It invokes the Service Members Protection Act of 2002, which calls for the use of military force should the ICC prosecute American war criminals. It's also known as the Invade the Hague Act.

[Gandalf]

The question is, does Israel accept?

Of course not.

Israel has invaded Rafah.

On a slightly different note from the world of protest music, Macklemore has dropped a song called Hind's Hall. It's worth a listen.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -palestine

US paused weapons shipment to Israel amid concern over Rafah, senior US official says
Official says final decision has not been made on shipment of thousands of bombs, which was halted amid review of the transfer of weapons

Peter Beaumont
Wed 8 May 2024 10.27 BST

The Biden administration paused the supply of thousands of large bombs to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the Gaza city of Rafah, US officials have confirmed.

The US president, Joe Biden, has been trying to head off a full-scale assault by Israel against the southern city, where more than a million displaced Palestinian have sought refuge from combat elsewhere in Gaza.

The highly significant move comes amid mounting international pressure on Israel to pull back from a full-scale attack after its seizure on Tuesday of the city’s border crossing with Egypt, and criticism of Israel’s use of large aerial munitions in areas packed with civilians.

The weapons – 1,000lb and 2,000lb bombs – had long been seen by experts as the most likely to be targeted for any potential restrictions on arms supplies to Israel given how destructive they are in urban settings.

The Guardian understands that conversations in recent months had focused on how the Israeli military’s use of certain munitions diverged from the Pentagon’s rules on the use of such weapons in heavily populated urban settings.

The Biden administration is also reviewing other planned shipments to Israel, including 6,500 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM), which convert freefall “dumb bombs” into precision-guided weapons, people familiar with the matter said.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to several media sources, said that as Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision on a Rafah incursion, “we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah” beginning in April.

Joe Biden’s ‘red line’ is an invasion of Rafah. So what happens if Israel attacks?

“As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs,” the official said, according to Reuters. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse reported similar comments from a senior US official.

“We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” the official said.

A second US official, also speaking anonymously and quoted by the Washington Post, said the move was a “shot across the bow” intended to convey to Israel the seriousness of US concerns about its offensive in Rafah.

Four sources told Reuters that the shipments, which have been delayed for at least two weeks, involved Boeing-made joint direct attack munitions and small-diameter bombs.

While an Israeli military spokesperson attempted to downplay the shipment delay – saying that allies resolve any disagreements “behind closed doors” – the move appeared to mark a significant moment in US policy.

While the US, EU, UK and other countries have pursued an escalating sanctions campaign against extremist Israeli settlers and far-right organisations, against the background of the Gaza war and settler violence on the West Bank, US attention has moved recently to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The weapons holdup comes against the background of the expected delivery of a state department report that examines whether Israel’s war conduct is credibly in compliance with assurances that US-supplied weapons are not being used in contravention of US and international humanitarian law.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment.

Israeli forces on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, cutting off a vital route for aid into the tiny territory. On Monday, the Israeli army had called on 100,000 people in eastern Rafah to evacuate.

Despite the assault in Rafah, the US has said it believes a revised Hamas ceasefire proposal may lead to a breakthrough as talks resume in Cairo on Wednesday. Israel had previously said the terms in the proposal had been softened, but the White House spokesperson John Kirby said the new text suggests the remaining gaps could “absolutely be closed”.

The CIA director, William Burns, is to travel to Israel on Wednesday to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a source said.

The delays to US arms shipments appeared to be the first since the Biden administration offered its full support to Israel after Hamas launched its 7 October attack last year, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others were abducted, of whom 133 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas has led to a seven-month military campaign that has killed 34,789 Palestinians, most of them civilians, the Gaza health ministry has said.

Without addressing whether there had been a holdup in arms shipments, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, reaffirmed that Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security was “ironclad”.

When asked about the reports on the arms holdups, she added: “Two things could be true, in the sense of having those conversations … tough, direct conversations with our counterparts in Israel … in making sure citizens’ lives are protected … and getting that commitment.”

I know this isn't much...but I'm pretty sure this has never happened before. Ever.

And apparently the Kerem Shalom aid crossing has reopened.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Israeli forces on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah

Honestly I'm surprised they didn't do this on day 1 of their ground offensive if their goal was to lay siege to Gaza.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Israeli forces on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah

Honestly I'm surprised they didn't do this on day 1 of their ground offensive if their goal was to lay siege to Gaza.

Unless I've badly misjudged him, Netanyahu is in a double bind. By refusing a ceasefire he is alienating Israel's allies and risking a wider war, but to accept it risks his hardline allies turning on him. At the same time, he needs to attack and conquer Rafah in order to appease those allies; but if he does conquer Rafah, then he effectively destroys Hamas. If he destroys Hamas, then he cannot use it to split the Palestinian territories and keep the forever war going.

[Ralin]

Israeli forces on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah

Honestly I'm surprised they didn't do this on day 1 of their ground offensive if their goal was to lay siege to Gaza.

Unless I've badly misjudged him, Netanyahu is in a double bind. By refusing a ceasefire he is alienating Israel's allies and risking a wider war, but to accept it risks his hardline allies turning on him. At the same time, he needs to attack and conquer Rafah in order to appease those allies; but if he does conquer Rafah, then he effectively destroys Hamas. If he destroys Hamas, then he cannot use it to split the Palestinian territories and keep the forever war going.

What exactly is the difference between a conquered Rafah and the standing status quo of them being able to send troops anywhere they please in Gaza, bomb anyone and anything they want with complete impunity, etc? Other than a bunch more rubble and dead people? Because it's not like there's some Hamas command bunker with all their leaders and weapons they can take (if there was it would have been bombed by now). In a best case scenario for an Israeli victory there are still going to be pissed off Palestinian fighters everywhere Palestinians are living, they're still going to have however many caches of weapons and people who know how to make more, there are going to be a LOT more recruits banging down Hamas or nuHamas's door... What exactly does victory look like, other than all the Palestinians eventually being dead?

I mean I know the cruelty is the point, but specifically, what's the difference? Gaza looks pretty fucking conquered to me. Has been for awhile.