Gaza-Israel Conflict | 2023-2024

'Settlers armed with long rifles, guns, knives and machetes came': West Bank Palestinian family driven from their home​


It's been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Around 500 have been killed in settler violence and raids by the Israeli military. Around 30 Israelis have also been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence.

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Subhi Shaledeh and his extended family had around 500 acres of prime grazing land in the Occupied West Bank, in the village of Janoub.

They owned olive trees and hundreds of sheep. The land had been in the family for decades.

But overnight they lost their livelihood and their and land.

Subhi says on 9 October, two days after the 7 October attack by Hamas, settlers from an Israeli outpost, which is classed as illegal under both Israeli and international law, stormed their land and destroyed their homes.

"Over 50 settlers armed with long rifles, guns, knives and machetes came," he says. "They entered out homes, set our houses ablaze and took away our livestock."
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Subhi Shaledeh says he and his family were driven off their land by Israeli settlers

Image: Subhi Shaledeh says he and his family were driven off their land by Israeli settlers

The family of nine, including seven children, along with around 70 members of the extended Shaledeh clan, were suddenly homeless.

"The settlers took advantage of the war in Gaza. They expelled us from our land and told us to leave, 'this is an open war', they said."

With nothing to defend themselves with and no one to call on, the family was forced to immediately flee.
The remains of Subhi Shaledeh's home following the attack

Image: The remains of Subhi Shaledeh's home following the attack

They haven't been able to return, the military has closed the roads, an Israeli checkpoint blocks the way, and the Shaledeh family say outpost settlers have taken over their land.

The Palestinian family is now renting one room for their large family, in a nearby village. They can't harvest their olives or sell their sheep. Everything is gone.

"We informed the Red Cross, Palestinian and Israeli authorities and we filed complaints," Subhi says. "We don't know what will happen."

Subhi now rents a single room in a nearby village for himself, his wife and their seven children

Image: Subhi now rents a single room in a nearby village for himself, his wife and their seven children

It's been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Around 500 have been killed in settler violence and raids by the Israeli military. Around 30 Israelis have also been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Israel argues that extreme settler violence is carried out by a small minority and the Israeli military raids target Palestinian militant groups.

Subhi Shaledeh is a broken man. With a large family to support this proud Palestinian landowner has been forced into poverty, his land and his freedom all taken away.

He hopes and prays to get his land back one day, but with international human rights organisations like the UN saying settlers act with growing impunity in the occupied West Bank, Subhi's hopes are fading fast.
 
"Channel 7 Hebrew: An Israeli soldier suffered from difficult psychological conditions while he was near Ashkelon on leave for several days to rest after the fighting in Gaza. He woke up at night and took another soldier’s weapon and opened fire on the soldiers accompanying him, wounding a number of them before he was controlled and referred for psychological treatment."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739958640969195820

That is the result of the massacres and genocide they carried out in Gaza. Their soldiers will never be the same. Justice will always prevail in hereafter or in this world.
 
Hassan Al-Somal said:
"Channel 7 Hebrew: An Israeli soldier suffered from difficult psychological conditions while he was near Ashkelon on leave for several days to rest after the fighting in Gaza. He woke up at night and took another soldier’s weapon and opened fire on the soldiers accompanying him, wounding a number of them before he was controlled and referred for psychological treatment."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739958640969195820

That is the result of the massacres and genocide they carried out in Gaza. Their soldiers will never be the same. Justice will always prevail in hereafter or in this world.
Click to expand...
PTSD is going to hit these young men and women hard.
 

Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss postwar plan for Gaza Strip​


www.theguardian.com

Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss postwar plan for Gaza Strip

Security officials keen to arrange meeting as ‘time running out’, according to reports
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss postwar plan for Gaza Strip​


Bethan McKernan


Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has allegedly refused requests from security officials to begin making plans for control and governance of the Gaza Strip after the war with Hamas ends, according to a report.

Over the last few days, three requests to the prime minister’s office were conveyed on behalf of the directors of the Mossad, the Shin Bet, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff and the defence ministry to arrange a meeting on decisions relating to “the day after” Israel declares it has achieved its goals against the Palestinian militant group in control of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Tuesday night.

All those requests were refused, the network said. “Time is running out and decisions need to be made already about how to act with regard to all the relevant actors inside and outside the Gaza Strip. The Americans want explanations,” it quoted an unnamed security official as saying.

Tuesday’s report comes amid allegations in the Israeli media that Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, have also refused to discuss the long-expected transition from the current “high intensity” stage of fighting to a new phrase focused on the more precise targeting of Hamas’s leaders, as well as a report that Netanyahu did not allow Gallant to hold detailed discussions about possible hostage-release deals with the Mossad.

Netanyahu may wish to postpone such discussions to protect his position as prime minister: his wartime unity government will disband after the conflict ends, and any solution for Gaza that involves Palestinian actors, such as the return of the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, threatens the stability of his far-right coalition government.

A spokesperson for the prime minister’s office said a date for a cabinet discussion on “the day after” had been set a month ago and would take place in the coming days.

On the ground in Gaza, Israel has broadened its offensive against Hamas, expanding into several overcrowded refugee camps near the central town of Deir al-Balah, as well as launching heavy airstrikes on the southern towns of Khan Younis and Rafah – all areas the military had told Palestinians to seek shelter earlier in the war.

House-to-house fighting has also been reported in the north of Gaza, despite comments from the IDF chief of staff over the weekend that the military had largely achieved operational control above the Gaza River.

Since Christmas Eve, the besieged Palestinian territory has suffered some of the deadliest days of the 12-week-old conflict to date, sparked by Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel on 7 October in which militants killed 1,140 people and took up to 250 hostage.

Israel’s retaliatory war on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has already become one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century, with estimates suggesting more than 20,900 people have been killed, 55,000 injured, and 85% of the Palestinian territory’s 2.3 million people forced to flee their homes.
In his first interview since the hostilities broke out, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Tuesday night that the war was “beyond a catastrophe”, accusing Netanyahu of planning “to get rid of the Palestinians”.

Despite rising international outcry over the humanitarian disaster, including growing criticism from the US, Israel’s most important ally, Netanyahu has said that Israel will push on until “complete victory” over Hamas.

Ron Dermer, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, is expected to meet with US officials in Washington on Wednesday. Divisions within the Biden administration over Israel policy have been growing, with some officials saying the US has underestimated the scale of disillusionment in the global south over perceived hypocrisy in calling out Russian war crimes in Ukraine, but finding a multitude of reasons to justify the large-scale killings of Palestinians in Gaza.

Also on Wednesday, the UN appointed Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ outgoing finance minister, as aid coordinator to the Palestinian territory, following last week’s watered-down security council resolution, which called for aid to be delivered to Gaza “at scale”.

About 200 trucks a day are currently entering Gaza, but aid agencies say this is still a fraction of what is needed. Before the latest conflict broke out, about 500 goods and aid trucks entered the territory every day.
 
www.theguardian.com

Gaza war puts US’s extensive weapons stockpile in Israel under scrutiny

Israel appears to be receiving munitions from stockpile, but there has been little transparency
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Gaza war puts US’s extensive weapons stockpile in Israel under scrutiny
Harry Davies

Their precise location is classified, but somewhere in Israel there are multiple closely guarded warehouses that contain billions of dollars’ worth of weapons owned by the US government.
Long shrouded in secrecy, the warehouses are part of an extensive but previously little-known stockpile now facing scrutiny as pressure mounts on the Biden administration over its support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

The stockpile was first established in the 1980s to rapidly supply US forces for any future Middle East conflicts. However, over time, Israel has been permitted in certain situations to draw from its extensive supplies.

Israel now appears to be receiving munitions from the stockpile in significant quantities for use in its war on Gaza, yet there has been little transparency about transfers from the arsenal.

In interviews with the Guardian, multiple former US officials familiar with American security assistance to Israel have described how the stockpile enables expedited arms transfers to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It can also shield movements of US weapons from public and congressional oversight, they said.

“Officially it’s US equipment for US use,” a former senior Pentagon official said, “but on the other hand, in an emergency, who’s to say we’re not going to give them the keys to the warehouses?”

Since the emergency of the Hamas massacre on 7 October, Israel has dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Gaza, and it has been open about its demand for large amounts of US-supplied munitions.
There are widely held concerns that Israel’s bombing of Gaza has been indiscriminate. And with close to 20,000 people dead in Gaza, according to local authorities, the US is facing questions about the quantities and categories of bombs it is providing to Israel and the proportion being made available through the secretive pre-positioned stockpile.

In Washington, lawmakers have raised concerns about proposals by the White House that would relax rules on the kinds of weapons placed in the stockpile, waive spending caps on its replenishment and give the Pentagon greater flexibility to make transfers from the arsenal.

Josh Paul, who recently resigned from the state department in protest at Washington’s continued lethal assistance for Israel, said the proposed changes to the stockpile were part of a drive by the Biden administration to find new ways to supply Israel.

Describing internal US deliberations in October, he said: “There was a press from the White House to say essentially we need to figure out every possible [legal] authority that we could give Israel that would get it weapons as fast as possible.”

An abundance of munitions
The full contents of the pre-positioned stockpile – known as the War Reserve Stocks for Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) – are not publicly disclosed, though former officials say the Pentagon provides Congress with an annual breakdown of what it holds.

The report may be classified, but earlier this year an unusually candid description of the stockpile’s contents emerged when a former US military chief recalled in an op-ed touring the WRSA-I warehouse.
“The current stockpile is full of so-called dumb munitions [those without sophisticated guidance systems],” he said, including “thousands of ‘iron bombs’ that are simply dropped from aircraft so gravity can do its work”.

Israeli Air Force shared an image of the M117 dumb bomb on Oct 12 with the caption on X: “arming and continuing the series of attacks.”

Israeli Air Force shared an image of the M117 dumb bomb on Oct 12 with the caption on X: “arming and continuing the series of attacks.” Photograph: Israeli Air Force

In 2020, this abundance of dumb munitions in the stockpile was highlighted by a pro-Israel thinktank, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which complained that WRSA-I had become “obsolete” because of its high levels of unguided bombs and shortage of precision-guided munitions (PGMs).

In its latest aerial bombardment of Gaza, however, Israel has relied heavily on these lower-accuracy unguided munitions, which weapons experts say has undercut claims by the IDF that it is trying to minimise civilian casualties.

Israel has not denied its use of unguided munitions, which can pose significant risks to civilians when used in densely populated areas. Its air force repeatedly shared images on social media at the beginning of the offensive of dumb bombs, such as M117s, attached to its fighter jets.

It is not possible to ascertain how frequently M117s were being used in Gaza or the manner of their deployment, but between 40% and 45% of the munitions used by Israel have been unguided, according to US intelligence assessments reported by CNN. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about what proportion of these munitions were from WRSA-I.

A former senior US official familiar with WRSA-I said that when it came to air-to-ground munitions, “we’ll give them whatever they need”, though they noted that Israel had its own domestically produced supplies of unguided munitions, unlike PGMs for which it largely relies on sales from the US.
US-supplied tail kits allow Israel to convert its stocks of unguided bombs into precision-guided ones, heavy 2,000lb versions of which appear to have been used in airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Defence analysts say there is little transparency about the categories and quantities of arms that the US is providing to Israel, but one transfer from WRSA-I emerged in October when Axios reported that the US would supply Israel with 155mm artillery shells. The unguided munitions, intended for Israel’s ground campaign in Gaza, were held in large volumes in WRSA-I.

The 155mm shells are particularly hazardous, according to Marc Garlasco, a former UN war crimes investigator, as each shell releases 2,000 lethal fragments, and “their accuracy degrades over distance, increasing the likelihood of civilians and civilian infrastructure getting hit by errant shells”.
Images published by Gaza police’s explosive ordnance disposal team last month appeared to show munition fragments of 155mm artillery shells being removed from buildings in Gaza. It is not known whether they were of US origin or from its stockpile.

The IDF and Israel’s defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Bypassing controls

Although Israel maintains WRSA-I and pays for its storage, its access to the stockpile is not unlimited, said Sarah Harrison, a former US defence department lawyer who is now an analyst at Crisis Group.
“There’s only one other stockpile like this, in [South] Korea, it’s very unique and allows for a transfer to happen fast,” she said. “But the stockpile does not authorise Israel to just take things and take things for free,” as there has to be a legal authority for each transfer of equipment.

Former officials said that where transfers from WRSA-I can differ from regular arms sales between the US and another country was that the equipment can be drawn from the stockpile before the processes that account for the transferred equipment are fully completed.

“We sort of retroactively build a foreign military sales case, which may or may not need to be notified to Congress, depending on what they took and what quantities,” said Josh Paul, the former state department official.

Paul, who until October worked on the US’s foreign arms transfers, said he was concerned by the expedited process as it could bypass the state department’s pre-transfer controls. “There’s no review of human rights, there’s no review of regional balance, there’s none of the conventional arms transfer policy review that would normally happen,” he said. “Essentially, it’s take what you can and we’ll sort it out later.”

A Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged it was “using foreign military financing and sales authorities to expedite delivery of security assistance, where feasible”. They said the US was “leveraging several avenues and sources to provide Israel security assistance, to include stockpiles in Israel and the US.”
Arms control experts say the speed and opacity of these transfers make it difficult to understand what is leaving WRSA-I, the legal mechanisms used for drawdowns and the extent to which Congress is being made aware of what support the US is providing to Israel via the stockpile.

Now, the White House is seeking to use its supplemental spending request to further relax rules related to WRSA-I, a move that senators led by Elizabeth Warren have said would harm their ability to “determine whether US assistance is contributing to disproportionate civilian harm”.

Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the state department, said Israel enjoyed many existing exceptions from procedural safeguards in its defence partnership with the US, and “any additional shortcut in fuelling conflict in the Middle East should be concerning”.

He said: “Do these arm transfers make sense strategically? Does pouring additional gasoline on the fire make sense in terms of US national interests or in achieving peace and stability in the region?”
 
A press statement issued by the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas denies the validity of what was stated by the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Ramadan Sharif: regarding the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and its motives.

We have repeatedly emphasized the motives and causes of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, foremost among which are the dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.

We also affirm that all Palestinian resistance actions come in response to the presence of the occupation and its continued aggression against our people and our sanctities.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739962136493748357

Falcon29 said:
A press statement issued by the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas denies the validity of what was stated by the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Ramadan Sharif: regarding the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and its motives.

We have repeatedly emphasized the motives and causes of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, foremost among which are the dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.

We also affirm that all Palestinian resistance actions come in response to the presence of the occupation and its continued aggression against our people and our sanctities.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739962136493748357
Click to expand...
In response to what this idiot was claiming yesterday:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739922180492988511
 
Hassan Al-Somal said:
"Channel 7 Hebrew: An Israeli soldier suffered from difficult psychological conditions while he was near Ashkelon on leave for several days to rest after the fighting in Gaza. He woke up at night and took another soldier’s weapon and opened fire on the soldiers accompanying him, wounding a number of them before he was controlled and referred for psychological treatment."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739958640969195820

That is the result of the massacres and genocide they carried out in Gaza. Their soldiers will never be the same. Justice will always prevail in hereafter or in this world.
Click to expand...

If they have done mental doing the killing imagine how the victims feel
 
Falcon29 said:
In response to what this idiot was claiming yesterday:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739922180492988511
Click to expand...
Hamas has had it with these lying propagandists that are coming to take responsibility for their operation then going on TV saying they never informed us and therefore we won't participate:
..
..

The Hamas movement denies the validity of what was stated by the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Ramadan Sharif: regarding the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and its motives.

We have repeatedly emphasized the motives and reasons for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, foremost among which are the dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1739961626491580758
 
SUMMARY of all resistance operations on 26 December against IOF in Gaza

Al-Qassam Brigades:

  • (Partially) destroyed 3 Merkava tanks, 1 military D9-bulldozer & 1 APC in various battle zones in the Strip.
  • Targeted a Zionist APC with soldiers on board, northeast of Al-Bureij camp, causing casualties. A military helicopter came to pickup for evacuation.
  • Detonated an explosive-laden booby-trapped tunnel upon the entry of a Zionist force consisting of 8 soldiers, east of Al-Bureij camp, resulting in casualties.

Al-Quds Brigades:

  • In a joint-operation with Al-Qassam Brigades, they targeted 5 military vehicles with "Tandem" and Al-Yassin105s in the axes of Jabalia, in northern Gaza Strip.
  • In a joint-operation with Al-Qassam Brigades, they ambushed a Zionist force inside a building in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, with machine guns and TBG explosives, resulting in casualties.
  • (Partially) destroyed 2 military vehicles with RPGs in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
  • Shelled military concentrations with a barrage of mortars, in Juhr Al-Dik.
  • Shelled military concentrations in the Abasan area, east of Khan Yunis, with a barrage of 60mm caliber mortars.

Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades:

  • Shelled IOF soldiers’ gatherings, east of Rafah, with heavy caliber mortars.

Martyr Omar Al-Qassem forces:

  • In the last 24h, inflicted casualties to 12 IOF soldiers, leaving them either dead or wounded, in various combat zones (Jabalia, Khan Yunis & Juhr al-Dik)
  • Clashed with IOF forces in the center & northern part of Khan Younis, with R.B.G. shells, and causing injuries and deaths.
  • Shelled a gathering of advanced military vehicles, east of Bureij, “Abu Mtaybaq Gate,” with several heavy-caliber mortars.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

  • (Partially) destroyed 5 military vehicles in various combat zones.
  • Clashed with IOF forces in various axes using machine guns and RPGs.
  • Shelled military gatherings in the axis east of Khan Younis with heavy-caliber mortars.
  • Targeted a building housing IOF forces near Birket Sheikh Radwan, with anti-fortification rockets & RPGs, resulting in the death and injury of those inside the building.
  • Targeted a number of military vehicles north of Khan Younis with RPGs, directly hitting them, over the past two days.
  • Clashed with IOF forces on the axis in Jabalia camp, with heavy barrages of bullets and RPGs.
 
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