Representative Elise Stefanik, recently nominated by President Donald Trump for the position of US ambassador to the UN, said that she supports the claims made by the far right in Israel that Jews have the “biblical right” to take land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, made the statement while being questioned during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 21 January to discuss her confirmation as the new UN Ambassador.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen asked Stefanik whether she supported Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Stefanik, who is known to be a staunch advocate of Israel and supports its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), refused to answer the question directly, saying, “I think they deserve more than the failures that they have suffered under the leadership of terrorists.”
Van Hollen pressed her further by saying that she had previously stated to him in a private meeting that “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.”
“I rarely get surprised by answers in my office, but I asked you if you believe the views of Israeli Finance Minister (Bezalel) Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who believe that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank. In that conversation, you said to me (yes) that you agree with that view. Is that your view today?”
Stefanik responded with one word, “Yes.”
The term “biblical right” refers to claims by extremist Jews and Zionist Christians that the Torah included a promise from God to give the entire historical land of Palestine to modern-day Jews. It claims that Jews are justified in killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their lands and homes.
In June last year, US-Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson reportedly donated $100 million to Trump for his presidential campaign in exchange for a promise to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Representative Stefanik was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2014, the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time, at just 30 years old, and represented New York’s 21st Congressional District.
She made headlines in 2024 by questioning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about what she claimed was antisemitism on college campuses.
At the time, US students at university campuses all across the country were protesting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
After positioning herself as a champion in the fight against the alleged rise in antisemitism, Rep. Stefanik began receiving large donations from Republican Jewish donors.
POLITICO reported that she “raked in more than $7 million during the first quarter of the year [2024] fueled by her support from prominent Jewish Republicans in the wake of her grilling of university presidents over campus antisemitism.”
The claim that Israeli Jews have the biblical right to the West Bank ignores the rights of Palestine’s indigenous Christians, who have lived in the Holy Land continuously since the time of Jesus over 2000 years ago. Palestinian Christians refer to themselves as “living stones,” in reference to Jesus telling his disciple Peter, “On this rock I will build my church.”
Israel’s occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 have brought the Palestinian Christian community to the brink of extinction.
In January of last year, Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem stated, “Here in the West Bank, many Palestinian Christian families have already left out of fear. They look at what was happening in Gaza, and they think, ‘Could this happen to us one day?’”
Isaac said it is “impossible to thrive as a community in the midst of conflict, oppression and occupation.”
Former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer Michael P. DiMino, who advocated for humanitarian aid to Gaza and against escalation with Iran, has been sworn in as the Pentagon’s Middle East policy chief.
He will be responsible for signing off on all foreign military agreements on the supply of weapons to US-aligned countries in the region, including Israel.
Earlier, DiMino criticized Biden’s administration for failing to pressure Israel on opening the humanitarian flow to Gaza; meanwhile, he praised the former administration for refusing to participate in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran, Al-Monitor reports.
Israeli gunfire has killed two Palestinian children and injured several others in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, despite a ceasefire currently in effect between Israel and Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Zakaria Hamid Yahya Barbakh was fatally shot on Monday near al-Awda Square in southern areas of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip, before witnesses filmed the Israeli army opening fire on a man trying to recover the child’s body.
According to reports, another Palestinian kid had been killed and nine others, among them children, were injured by Israeli gunfire in Rafah earlier in the day.
Palestinian sources reported that Israeli tanks violated a designated buffer zone, unleashing heavy gunfire on civilians. According to the sources, the military pushed forward 850 meters (2,789 feet) into the territory, surpassing the 700-meter limit established in the ceasefire agreement.
The ceasefire agreement, which took effect on Sunday, is designed to last for 42 days and includes provisions for negotiations on subsequent phases, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States. As part of the agreement, Hamas released three Israeli women in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children.
As the ceasefire continues in war-wracked Gaza. the Israeli violence rages in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settlers, backed by military forces, unleashed violence in the occupied West Bank villages north of al-Quds, where Palestinian homes, a nursery and a local business were burned.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Palestine, in a statement, has expressed alarm at the “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers and armed forces in the occupied West Bank, amid the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
In addition to the violence perpetrated by settlers, Israeli forces have reportedly established military checkpoints and closed roads across the West Bank, restricting Palestinians’ movement.
According to Palestinian media outlets, all entrances to al-Khalil, Qalqilya, and Salfit, as well as several towns and villages within the Salfit governorate have been closed, with similar measures being enforced in Bethlehem.
In a related development, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order reversing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, which were previously implemented by the Joe Biden administration as part of efforts against what they called the “extremist settlement movement.”
During his final trip as America’s top diplomat last week, Antony J. Blinken was described by French President Emmanuel Macron as “an eminent servant of peace” at a ceremony at the Élysée Palace in Paris before being awarded the country’s highest tribute, the Legion of Honour medal. However, Blinken’s reception in the US during the last few days as Secretary of State has been the polar opposite, with the New York Times describing him as the “Secretary of War” and protestors slamming him for having a “legacy” of genocide.
“Secretary Blinken! Your legacy will be genocide! You will forever be known as ‘Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide,’” shouted a protester who had infiltrated an Atlantic Council event on January 16. Security officers led the protestor out of the room, as well as a man who waved a sign that read “Blinken: War Criminal.”
The founder and editor of the Grayzone website, Max Blumenthal, also interrupted the press conference, telling Blinken: “In Gaza, 300 journalists have been targeted by your bombs. We all know there was an agreement in May. Tony, you didn’t stop the flow of bombs. Why have you sacrificed a rules-based order for your commitment to Zionism?”
The Biden administration faced consistent criticism for its military and political support for Israel through its war against Hamas, which has only elevated since US President Donald Trump, days before he entered the Oval Office, managed to coerce Israel to accept a peace deal that had been on the table for most of 2024.
However, beyond activist-journalists, even the mainstream media in the US began slamming Blinken, but only days before stepping down as Secretary of State.
Blinken’s term began with the disorderly withdrawal of US personnel from Afghanistan, where Washington had accumulated forces and assets for 20 years and left everything in only a few days in August 2021. The situation was so precarious that some Republican Party congressmen demanded that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken resign, recalls the New York Times.
In a recent interview with the same newspaper, Blinken admitted that Washington began discreetly arming Kiev even before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, specifically in September and December 2021.
In the new article, the newspaper said that the US Secretary of State was more of a war strategist than a peacemaker in the Ukrainian conflict.
“When the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, suggested in late 2022 that Ukraine should capitalize on battlefield gains by seeking peace talks with Moscow, Mr. Blinken insisted the fight should go on,” the New York Times reported.
However, it was a new armed conflict that significantly damaged the reputation of the former head of US diplomacy. After the attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, Blinken stressed not only the historic alliance between Tel Aviv and Washington but also his Jewish ethnicity on this issue.
But the more frightening Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza became, the more public disillusionment with the Secretary of State grew against the backdrop of the declining effectiveness of his numerous visits to the Middle East.
“Of everyone in the cast of characters at the top, Antony Blinken has been the most disappointing,” the newspaper quoted diplomat and Iraq war veteran Michael Casey, who resigned last year from his State Department post in Jerusalem, where he worked on Gaza.
In fact, Blinken’s propensity for war has led to the New York Times finally acknowledging, albeit too late since Trump is already in power, as the “Secretary of War.”
“So entwined are Mr. Blinken’s work and his reputation with conflict that he could just as easily be called by a retired cabinet title that is still on office plaques in the old State Department building — secretary of war,” the newspaper added.
Following the chorus condemning Blinken’s passion for war, Hala Rharrit, a diplomat who resigned from the US State Department in April, said that the former Secretary of State’s choice to support Israel would “haunt” him for the rest of his life.
“When I became a diplomat, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution. They are circumventing the process to continue the flow of arms, knowing how catastrophic that is. For me, it’s really unforgivable, and it is criminal,” Rharrit said.
“This will haunt him for the rest of his life. History, for sure, will judge him, and it is already doing so today,” she added.
Blinken’s legacy is tarnished, and he will forever be remembered for encouraging the continuation of war in Ukraine and Gaza when he had the power and influence to establish peace deals.
This was completely exposed when Trump managed to achieve an agreement between Israel and Gaza even before he returned to the presidency, confirming that prolonged war, and therefore the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, was because of Blinken’s decision.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
By the time most of you read this column, we will have a new US President. Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated for his second term today at 11:30 AM, Eastern time, and many Americans are hopeful that the disastrous foreign policy of the past four years under Biden will be improved. There is good news and bad news.
First the good news. It is no surprise that Trump’s appointees to foreign policy and national security positions are to the person very hawkish on China. However Trump, as he often does, has defied conventional wisdom on what his China policy might be by not only inviting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration, but actually picking up the telephone and having a conversation with his Chinese counterpart.
According to a read-out of the call, the two discussed “trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and other subjects” and agreed to remain in regular contact. Winston Churchill is often (inaccurately) credited with the phrase “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but nonetheless it is an accurate statement. It is much better to engage even with “adversaries” than to refuse contact and add more sanctions. Those who prefer sanctions over communications are the true isolationists.
On TikTok, the popular application has credited Trump with preventing the Congressional ban from taking effect. If true, it is another good Trump move in favor of our Constitutional free speech guarantees.
Likewise with Russia, media reports suggest that holding a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be among the first things Trump does as President. That is great news for all of humanity, as Biden’s dangerous proxy war in Ukraine and refusal to communicate with the Russian president has brought us to the very edge of a once-unimaginable nuclear exchange. When the end of life on earth is at stake, it is reckless to ignore the possibility of de-escalation.
In the Middle East, incoming President Trump is being credited with securing a ceasefire in Gaza, an achievement the Biden Administration seemed incapable of or uninterested in seriously attempting for the past year. Does Trump deserve all the credit? We don’t know. But we do know that thousands have been needlessly slaughtered while Biden dithered and sent more weapons. The wholesale destruction of Gaza with US bombs and financial support will be Biden’s enduring legacy and a stain on everyone involved.
The bad news is that because of President Trump’s decision to appoint the most hawkish advisors, he will be surrounded by individuals who will constantly encourage him to confront rather than disengage. For example, his special envoy on the Ukraine war has recently boxed Trump in on Iran by declaring a return to the failed “maximum pressure” campaign of his first Administration. The policy failed to achieve the desired results when first implemented and it will fail again if adopted again. Why? Iran has developed far more extensive trade ties outside the influence of the US government, for example among the BRICS countries. It is not possible to isolate Iran as it has been in the past. As with China and others, with Iran it would be far better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. Let’s hope President Trump understands that.
We will no doubt see some disappointments in incoming President Trump’s foreign policy, but there are solid reasons to be cautiously optimistic. Particularly when measured against his predecessor.
The Metropolitan Police have summoned former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell for an “interview” following a pro-Palestinian rally in central London on Saturday, Anadolu reported.
The Metropolitan Police is investigating what it described as a “coordinated effort by the rally’s organisers to breach conditions imposed on the event.”
Corbyn, 75, and McDonnell, 73, who agreed to the interviews, voluntarily appeared at a police station in the capital yesterday afternoon.
After leaving the police station, the two MPs did not answer reporters’ questions.
Police also summoned three unnamed persons to give voluntary testimony as part of an “ongoing investigation”.
The rally, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its coalition partners, saw thousands gather in Whitehall after police blocked plans for a march from Portland Place, near the headquarters of the BBC.
Officers had imposed conditions under the Public Order Act restricting the protest to Whitehall, citing concerns over a potential “serious disruption” near a synagogue.
Police said a group of protesters broke through a police line to reach Trafalgar Square, where officers stopped them.
The Metropolitan Police posted a photo on social media showing a group that it said have forced its way through the police line being held at the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square.
Corbyn, however, disputed the account.
“This is not an accurate description of events at all,” he said in a post on X.
He said he was part of a delegation of speakers intending to lay flowers in memory of children killed in Gaza, which was “facilitated by the police”.
McDonnell echoed his comments.
“We did not force our way through. The police allowed us to go through, and when we stopped in Trafalgar Square, we laid our flowers down and dispersed.”
Nine people, including Corbyn’s brother Piers Corbyn, and Chris Nineham, a chief steward on the march, have been charged with public order offences and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the coming days.
The Met Police also confirmed that 24 people have been released on bail, while 48 remain in custody. Three other men aged 75, 73 and 61 have agreed to be interviewed under criminal caution.
The protest coincided with the announcement of a ceasefire and prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.
Corbyn, who now sits as an independent member of parliament for Islington North, has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights.
McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, also sits as an independent after Labour suspended the whip from him for six months in July 2024 over his vote against the government on child benefit rules.
The demonstration in London drew tens of thousands of supporters of Palestine, despite the police-imposed restrictions and banning of a previously agreed-upon route.
During the protest, 77 people were arrested.
Met Commander Adam Slonecki said security forces have been deployed for more than 20 national protests organised by the PSC since October 2023.
He highlighted that the number of arrests at yesterday’s rally marked the “highest number” recorded at such demonstrations during this period.
After several hours of delay following the handing over of three Israeli captives by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, 90 Palestinian prisoners – all females and minors – were released from Israeli jails early on 20 January as part of the first phase of the ceasefire and exchange deal.
The Palestinians were released from Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank and Moscovia prison in Jerusalem, as well as the Damon prison.
Those from Ofer were dropped off by Red Cross buses at Beitunia north of Ramallah, where their families received them, and those from Moscovia went straight to their neighborhoods in occupied Jerusalem.
Among the prisoners was Abla Saadat, wife of the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Saadat. She was detained in September last year.
PFLP member Khalida Jarrar was also released. Jarrar had been in and out of Israeli prisons for several years and was detained for the fifth and final time in December 2023 after the start of the genocidal war in Gaza.
She was held in solitary confinement for the last six months of her detention despite suffering from serious medical issues, including deep vein thrombosis. Jarrar was in a state of exhaustion upon her release and was not able to speak to the media.
Palestinian journalist and prisoner activist Bushra al-Tawil was also among those released. She has been incarcerated seven times.
Rose Khweis, an 18-year-old who was also freed, told Reuters inmates were treated ”like animals” where she was imprisoned.
“The occupation forces were cursing us and treating us badly [during the release]. The occupation authorities contacted our families and warned them against any manifestations of joy,” Jenin Amro told Al Jazeera upon being discharged.
The next six weeks are meant to see the release of 2,000 Palestinians. Israel will discharge 30 to 50 prisoners for each captive released by Hamas. The first phase of the deal – which was announced last week – is supposed to see the release of 33 Israeli captives being held in Gaza. Negotiations for the second phase will begin 16 days into phase one.
Three Israeli captives were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza on the afternoon of 19 January.
Huge crowds of Palestinians, along with a strong presence of Qassam Brigades fighters, gathered in Gaza City’s Al-Saraya Square as the three female Israeli captives were released and given over to the Red Cross.
The captives were retrieved by the Israeli army at the Reim Base outside Gaza.
The UK knew about Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian and Arab detainees nearly 50 years ago but refused to act, British documents reveal. The papers, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, also reveal that the US opted to address the issue solely through non-governmental organisations.
Israeli soldiers lead blindfolded Palestinian detainees across the Israel-Gaza border after they were detained by Israeli forces operating inside Gaza, 1 August 2007. [DAVID FURST / AFP/ Getty Images]
Documents from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office show that Britain was aware that Israeli authorities were systematically torturing Palestinian and Arab detainees in mid-1977 but declined to pressure Israel to halt these practices.
In June 1977, the Sunday Times published a shocking dossier exposing the brutal torture of Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres. The report described the torture as “systematic” and “organised so methodically that it cannot be dismissed as a handful of ‘rogue cops’ exceeding orders”. It found that torture “appears to be sanctioned at some level as deliberate policy” and detailed 17 different methods of abuse, including beatings, genitalia squeezing, insertion of foreign objects into body orifices, hanging upside down, cigarette burns, and torture of family members in front of prisoners.”
The Sunday Times’ dossier was based on interviews with former detainees who described other physical abuse and psychological pressure during their detention.
At the time, the FCO reports indicated there were 3,200 Palestinian and Arab detainees from the occupied territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan held in Israeli prisons or detention centres in Israel and the territories occupied by the Israeli military in the 1967 war.
The documents show that before the report’s publication, the Sunday Times shared its findings with then-UK FOreign Secretary David Owen. British diplomats in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem conducted confidential interviews with officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Quaker Service (QS), a Northern Ireland charity, to explore their views on the torture allegations.
James Fine of QS confirmed to Mike Jenner, the British consul-general in East Jerusalem, that “all forms of torture used in Northern Ireland had been used [against the Palestinians] here [by Israel].” He gave examples such as “hooding, sleep deprivation, and bread-and-water diets.” Fine added that “in all interrogations, some beating up was used,” and in a minority of cases, “serious” beatings occurred. He further noted that more sophisticated torture such as “electric shocks, bottles up the anus and objects inserted into the penis” were used in “a few cases”. While Fine acknowledged the evidence came from Palestinian and Arab detainees and prisoners, he emphasised that “exaggeration must be discounted”.
Jenner informed his bosses in the FCO that Fine believed that the body of evidence was “so consistent that, at the very least, there was a prima facie case for a full enquiry into allegation of torture.”
The ICRC representative in Jerusalem, Alfredo Witschi, supported the Sunday Times findings, calling the report “a very fair presentation of the available evidence,” despite it containing “some mistakes”. Witschi stated that the ICRC possessed “similar evidence though in much greater quantity”, alerting the British diplomat that the weight of the ICRC’s evidence of beating, which he said was very severe in some cases, was such that he “considered it amounted to proof” of torture.
He suggested that Israeli interrogators “were unlikely to be acting without instructions” and these instructions “were possibly to give them a free hand provided that they didn’t go too far”. Witschi also highlighted that the Sunday Times report “paid too little attention” to psychological techniques of torture used by the Israelis such as “threat of torture after exhausting the suspect by sleep deprivation and rigorous exercises.” The ICRC official was keen to alert Jenner that their conversation should be confidential.
The FCO Research Department reviewed the Sunday Times report and concluded that the allegations were “consistent with the available evidence from other sources, including the ICRC.” It acknowledged that psychological pressure was “probably condoned by higher authorities in Israel,” and more serious cases of maltreatment were probably isolated but did occur. The department drew the attention of FCO officials that the more serious allegations are “against Shin Bait [Israeli Internal Security Service] personnel in Moscobia, Hebron and Sarafand prisons.”
The Near East and North Africa Department (NENA) within the FCO noted that the sources for the allegations were primarily Arab prisoners and their legal representatives, making the accounts potentially one-sided. However it admitted the allegations of torture in the Israeli prisons “is not entirely inconsistent with that which emerges from the other material available to us and in particular with what the ICRC representative in Jerusalem told the Consulate-General there in confidence.”
William R. Tomkys, head of NENA, recommended raising the issue discreetly with Avraham Kidron, the Israeli ambassador to London, rather than involving the UK ambassador in Tel Aviv, to avoid straining relations with the Israeli government. “We may get off on the wrong foot with Mr Kidron as a result but this is less damaging than the risk that HM ambassador at Tel Aviv might lose the confidence of Mr Begin’s government,” Tomkys wrote.
He suggested advising Israel to conduct “a public inquiry”, arguing it would be “consistent with Israel’s close concern for human rights” and address widespread public concern in the UK about the allegations about the Israeli treatment of prisoners.
However, Foreign Secretary Owen instructed the FCO to wait till he addressed the issue with US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance.
Commenting on Tomkys’ report and recommendation, Owen ordered “No action to be taken” instructing the issue “should be raised at a political level not Ambassadorial.” But he stressed that raising the issue should be “certainly not immediately”. Owen stressed to his staff that “we will also need to discuss with the Americans whom I know need time to consider” the issue.
He also disclosed that he had spoken to Sunday Times Editor Harry Evans about the report but the documents did not show whether he had shared the details of their conversation with his staff.
When the British ambassador raised the issue with the US State Department, officials confirmed they “had taken the report of the Sunday Times seriously.” However, Walter Smith, head of Israeli and Arab-Israeli Affairs, told the ambassador he was preparing a paper for Vance and the Americans “would encourage one or two members of the American Bar Association to get in touch with their Israeli opposite numbers to see whether further investigation leading to remedial action would be possible.”
The Sunday Times report sparked significant public and political concern in the UK. Thirty-three Members of Parliament signed a motion to discuss the issue in July 1977, while others wrote letters to Owen and his ministers. David Watkins, an MP and member of the Labour Middle East Council, strongly criticised the government’s “failure” to address the violations of Palestinians’ rights and to raise the issue “more vigorously and more openly” with the Israeli government given the available evidence. He warned that the UK risked being accused of “applying double standards” if it did not act as it had in the case of South Africa.
The MP pressed the ministers to inform him whether the UK has done all it should to find out the truth about “the persistent of allegations of torture” in Israeli prisons. He slammed what he described as “covering up” the Israeli ill-treatment of the Arab prisoners and detainees “both officially and on the news media”, giving an example of a US State Department document, which he confirmed he has seen, reporting on Israel observance of human rights in both Israel and the occupied territories. The MP described the document, prepared for Jimmy Carter, the then-US president, as “remarkably dishonest”. Watkins believed that the paper “was designed to assure the President that in difficult circumstance, Israel is making commendable, even if not wholly successful, effort to provide for and observe the Palestinian human rights both in Israel and in the occupied territories.”
In his response to Watkins, Frank Judd, minister of state for the Middle East, acknowledged that the allegations published by the Sunday Times were “disturbing” and stressed the need for Israel to address them.
Judd stressed that if true, these stories “would also reflect a situation which we, as a government committed to the promotion of human rights worldwide, would view most seriously.”
He suggested an “independent inquiry”, but he noted that its success would require Israel’s full cooperation. He rejected any idea to press Israel, expressing fears that if the UK raised the individual cases of human rights violation with the Israelis, such a move “would almost certainly be misinterpreted as an attempt to put political pressure on Israel over the wider issues of a Middle East settlement.”
Watkins, however, insisted that pressure on Israel was necessary, arguing that Israel would never withdraw from occupied territories or recognise Palestinian rights “except under pressure”.
Medical sources say more than 97 bodies were recovered in Rafah a day after the Gaza ceasefire took effect.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Monday that 60 Gazans lost their lives on that first day.
Palestinian authorities estimate the number of unrecovered bodies to be around 10,000, with some claiming the number to be as high as 15,000.
Around 2,840 bodies were also said to have been “evaporated without a trace” due to the extreme temperatures caused by Israeli weapons.
The Israeli bombing of Gaza has left more than two-thirds of all buildings in the strip damaged or destroyed.
The recovery of dead bodies has also been compounded since Israeli forces have regularly attacked civil defense units.
During the Israeli campaign of genocide in Gaza, 99 civil defense members were killed with 319 being injured. At least 27 members of the Gaza civil defense were also abducted by Israeli soldiers with their fate currently being unknown.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, as of Monday, the death toll of Israel’s aggression surpasses 47,000.
After more than a year of bloody fighting in the Gaza Strip, both sides reached a ceasefire agreement. Hamas and Israel reportedly agreed to halt hostilities from January on, implementing a multiple step “pacification” plan to end the war. The agreement came after several bilateral talks mediated by Qatar. The final terms of the deal were highly unfavorable to Israel, which led to harsh criticism from the Zionist press and internal opposition, who described it as a “surrender.”
As a result of local political pressure, on January 16, Benjamin Netanyahu announced his interest in delaying the signing of the agreement due to unfounded accusations of “violations” allegedly on the part of Hamas. Additionally, new Israeli airstrikes occurred in Gaza on the same day, killing dozens of people. However, only a few hours later, reports emerged that the agreement had been signed in Doha.
It is still too early to say what the final outcome of this agreement will be. The fact that both sides agreed to temporarily stop hostilities does not mean the end of the conflict. For the Palestinians, the true war will only end when Israel withdraws from Palestine. For Zionists, the end depends on the success of the ethnic cleansing plan in Gaza and the West Bank. However, the halting of bombings and killings is a significant political victory for Palestinian Resistance, especially considering the favorable terms for Hamas.
The agreement, as outlined in its final terms, establishes a prisoner exchange system at a ratio of one Israeli for fifty Palestinians. Tel Aviv is required to completely withdraw from Gaza and stop attacks, while Hamas maintains its legitimate political authority in Gaza. In other words, the agreement includes substantial concessions from Israel, clearly showing that the winning side — i.e., the side in a position to demand its terms — was Hamas.
It is possible that the agreement will fail early. Even with both sides signing, Israel could withdraw at any time, given that Netanyahu is under constant pressure to disguise his political defeat. However, even if hostilities continue, Tel Aviv will still be viewed by all analysts as the defeated side in this war.
It is important to emphasize that war is a political phenomenon, not a military one. Military operations are merely some of the means through which a war occurs, but they are not the central point of a conflict. In fact, war is an extreme political mechanism, where two or more political entities confront each other using violence as a legitimate weapon.
Being a political event, the winner in a war is the side that achieves its political objectives, regardless of the military situation. In this sense, it is possible to lose all military battles but still win politically in the end. Something similar happened, for example, in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In both cases, the U.S. devastated the enemy countries, massacring the local populations through inhumane acts of violence. However, both in Vietnam, in 1973, and in Afghanistan, in 2021, Washington was defeated at the end of the war, leaving the battlefield without achieving its political objectives.
In Gaza, Israel devastated the civilian population and destroyed the infrastructure, but failed to achieve the political goals of its counterattack: eliminating Hamas, occupying Gaza, and freeing prisoners. No Israeli objective was achieved, so Tel Aviv lost. Meanwhile, Hamas achieved its political objectives of weakening the Zionist enemy and preventing the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque, clearly demonstrating that the Resistance won the war.
The situation is far from over. Only the end of the State of Israel — or its complete demilitarization and territorial reconfiguration — would represent a final victory for Hamas. But regardless of this, the current victory is important for the Resistance. If the ceasefire holds, Hamas will have relief and enough time to regroup and strengthen for the next battle. If the agreement fails, the war will continue in its status quo, where Hamas already has the advantage on the battlefield, efficiently preventing enemy territorial advances despite constant civilian casualties.
In the end, Israel is defeated from every perspective. Netanyahu criticizes the agreement because he knows he is committing political suicide by signing a disguised surrender pact. However, if he does not respect the ceasefire, Netanyahu will further harm his government and will have to accept the consequences of a permanent war.
Palestinian victory is the only certainty for now.
This week’s “breakthrough” in ceasefire negotiations to end the genocidal campaign against Gaza came, according to regional sources, after a single intervention by US president-elect Trump’s designated envoy Steve Witkoff in which he ordered Netanyahu’s government to capitulate. While we might be skeptical of Trump’s habit of claiming credit for any progress, it was corroborated by the far-right members of the Netanyahu government erupting into the kind of tantrum for which they are now world-famous, framing the deal as a disaster imposed on “Israel” by the incoming administration.
While a welcome relief, the imposition of the ceasefire on “Israel” by Trump also brings into stark focus the pointlessness of the last year and a half of slaughter as well as the regionalization of the war to the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen.
In the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Biden, while parroting “Israel’s” atrocity propaganda about beheaded infants in ovens, gave Netanyahu a carte blanche to declare total war on the people of Gaza. As the unique scale of the atrocities in the Strip became clear, Biden proceeded, through his spineless UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to provide diplomatic cover for the genocide at the Security Council. Breaking even with its European surrogates, the US vetoed every resolution that called for an end to the butchery, clearly straining to invent new objections to deflect global outrage at such cold-blooded cynicism.
The free rein given by the American government only emboldened the Israeli regime to widen the scope of the war. It achieved this to great effect through its airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus. In addition to violating every rule of modern (and ancient) diplomacy, the attack killed several high-ranking Iranian officials, guaranteeing that Tehran would retaliate directly, which it did with the largest volley of drones in military history (thus far) against “Israel”.
As was clear from the warning Tehran issued as the attack unfolded, it was deliberately calibrating its response to avert further escalation. By this point, the urgent need for a ceasefire was indisputable. It was, however, to presage the most shameful chapter of the US administration’s complicity.
Shortly afterward, in June, Biden lied that a ceasefire deal had finally been reached, that it was at the initiative of the Netanyahu government, and that the Israeli leadership had accepted it. Secretary of State Antony Blinken clownishly trumpeted this falsehood, along with the claim that the only impediment to the ceasefire was Hamas’ refusal of its terms. It was well known at the time to be a lie, but the breakthrough of the last week confirms it beyond all doubt.
The Biden Administration’s refusal from that point on to impose a ceasefire cleared the path for the Israeli regime to massively escalate the war by assassinating Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran, which, along with its flagrant campaign of terrorism against Lebanon, culminating in the assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, compelled Tehran to forcefully retaliate with a further massive drone and ballistic missile barrage against Israeli military targets.
Seizing the opportunity, Netanyahu used the response to his own provocations to launch a cynical war of choice against Lebanon in the vain belief that Israeli infiltration had “decapitated” Hezbollah. This most destructive war in Lebanon’s recent history displaced more than a million Lebanese and obliterated civilian infrastructure in the South, Beirut, and the Beqaa Valley, killing at least 4,000 civilians and wounding nearly 17,000. Despite this blitzkrieg, Israeli ground forces found themselves unable to advance as much as one kilometer along the entire stretch of the south Lebanese border. Along with a mounting casualty rate, “Israel” was forced to accept a ceasefire, albeit one that has given it cover to continue detonating villages on the border and launching drone and air strikes against Lebanese targets.
Throughout the entirety of this catastrophic year, US voters were shamelessly gaslit by the Democratic Party. First, they were fed the laughable falsehood that Biden was being repeatedly “deceived” by the Israeli leadership and that he personally detested the Israeli Prime Minister. Clearly, it was never to the extent that he would even consider withholding the deluge of armaments without which Tel Aviv could not prosecute the genocide or its spill-over in more than half a dozen other regional theatres. Secondarily, we were admonished, even by supposed supporters of Palestine, that to not vote for Vice President Kamala Harris would be to see the genocide intensify in a second Trump presidency.
While there is more than ample cause for skepticism, the ease with which the US president-elect has forced the Israeli leadership to fall into line has torched the last fig leaf of justification that the Democrats were ever interested in doing anything but stalling for time so that Tel Aviv could ‘finish the job,’ even at the cost of losing the election to what they claimed is the “Hitler of our time.”
Even as the Palestinians may take comfort that the last year has thrown their cause to the forefront of the global agenda; it has nonetheless come at a still uncalculated cost in life and property. When the true toll is eventually calculated, as well as the fascists of Tel Aviv, every drop of blood will be on the heads of the now-former Biden administration that so willingly offered up an entire region for slaughter.
And once the mere posture of pressure was exerted on Israel by an envoy representing a man who isn’t even President yet, lo and behold, a ceasefire was secured.
The truth of the matter is that every day for the past year, Biden could have secured a ceasefire by using America’s vast leverage.
And every day for the past year, from all the evidence we have today, Biden chose not to.
That is the crux of the matter. It is precisely the fact that Biden chose this path that will damage America for years to come. It wasn’t that he lacked the ability or strength to stop the carnage. It’s not that he really wanted to stop it but sadly couldn’t. It wasn’t that his hands were tied. It wasn’t that Congress forced him. Or that polls showed that he or Kamala Harris would lose the elections if they pressed Israel. It wasn’t any of that.
Biden was simply in on it. He was on board with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war plans. He even attended the war cabinet where the plans were adopted.
In an exit interview with the Times of Israel, Biden’s outgoing ambassador to Israel even bragged about the Biden administration never exerting pressure on Netanyahu to halt the killing. “Nothing that we ever said was, Just stop the war,” Ambassador Jack Lew proudly declared.
By willingly making America complicit, Biden’s decisions will have profound and long-lasting strategic repercussions for the American people on par with the damage George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq inflicted on America’s standing, credibility, and security, as well as on the region’s stability.
So every bomb Biden provided Israel to drop on children in Gaza was not only morally monstrous; it also made Americans less safe.
It will take years for America to recuperate from the damage Biden has inflicted on our standing, our moral compass, our credibility, and on our security. America is still recovering from the sins of the Iraq invasion.
But there will be no healing at all, no bouncing back, unless we admit the errors, hold those responsible accountable, and learn to do better. Just as Bush’s Iraq invasion and Global War on Terror gave birth to the strongest anti-war sentiments among Americans seen in decades, made war-mongering bad politics, and the epithet “neocon” an insult, Biden’s bearhug strategy on and blind deference to Israel must forever be remembered as the original sin that led America down the path of complicity in what most likely amounts to genocide.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | May 24, 2010
A build up of heightened tension in the Middle East is escalating in the last few weeks. American and Israeli postures towards Lebanon, Syria, and Iran have become more threatening. Listening to speeches of political leaders one hears talks only about war not peace. Iranians and Israelis are continuously training hard for a possible showdown. Both sides are conducting extensive war games every month. This led Syrians to claim that Israel is preparing for a soon-to-come another war. The Jordanians also are warning that current stalemate of the peace process is an indication of a war breaking out this summer. The Russian President and his army chief hinted, a few months ago, that the US and Israel were planning for an attack on Iran.
Indeed Iran is, as it has been for last few years, the target of most of the threats and accusations of supporting terrorism. Escalating incitement against Iran the American Defense Department sent last month (April) to Congress a report on Iran’s military claiming Iran could develop intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US by 2015.
Ignoring the fact that N. Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel are proven to have nuclear weapons while Iran does not, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose in her speech, to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at the UN, to focus on Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions putting the whole world at risk as she put it. According to Clinton Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, rather than Israel’s more than 200 nuclear bombs, is destabilizing the Middle East. She called on the world’s nations to rally around US efforts to hold Iran, not other nuclear countries, to account.
The accusation that Usama Bin Laden is living comfortably in Iran had received a boost after the broadcast of a documentary called “Feathered Cocaine”. This echoed the June 2003 claims of the Italian newspaper Corre de la Sierra that Bin Laden was in Iran according to some intelligence report, and according to Richard Miniter’s book “Shadow War”. … continue
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