Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

It was a Monday — Day 17 — when Yonatan left Tel Aviv for a meeting in Jerusalem with Eli Cohen, the country’s foreign minister, and Gal Hirsch, the head of its hostage rescue team.

It was meant to serve as an update for the hostage families. The government had said little about its efforts to secure the release of the 242. By its own count, Israel had dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Oct. 7. No one had explained what precautions were being taken to avoid killing the hostages.

Yonatan, in a T-shirt and shorts, walked into the Foreign Ministry in downtown Jerusalem. Neatly dressed government officials had been assigned to greet and accompany every hostage family inside the meeting hall.

He saw other families from Beeri and sat down at their table.

There were Cohen and Hirsch, both men his mother had demonstrated against. They walked around the room as they spoke.

“This is our top priority,” Yonatan recalled Hirsch saying. Military pressure, he said, would give Israel leverage in a hostage negotiation.

“What about a cease-fire?” Yonatan asked.

“He was flabbergasted,” Yonatan recalled. “He said, ‘That’s a present for Hamas.’”

“So you’re doing everything to get the hostages out except for presents,” Yonatan responded.

Then Cohen addressed the group, speaking vaguely about the plan to free the hostages. He said he needed to be careful about what he shared so details didn’t leak to the press, Yonatan remembered.

Does anyone have questions, he asked after his remarks.

Yonatan raised his hand and took the microphone.

“When you talk about annihilating Hamas, it feels like a propaganda line because you didn’t do it in the past 15 years and you’re not going to do it now,” he said. “And if you do it, it’s going to kill the hostages.”

We will win the war, Cohen responded.

Just today my wife and I met with one of her friends, who is related to Vivian Silver by marriage. She said that her apartment was basically a charred black box after the attack, and that the only hope that she’s alive is because there were no bones in the ruins.

With the hostages, I've been thinking about the successful resolution of the Trabzon hostage incident of 1996, and how Turkiye handled it vs how Russia wanted them to handle it

In the article it mentions her phone was geolocated in Gaza a few hours after the attack

Thank you for sharing that Vivian Silver story. I will be so, so relieved if she is alive and recovered

About 69 mosques have been destroyed. This one is apparently older than Israel.

---
Alan MacLeod
@AlanRMacLeod
Watch this absolutely insane footage of Israel wiping out the Khalid bin al-Walid Mosque in Gaza yesterday.

Arab protestors in Israel are being arrested.

---

It appears we are under undeclared military rule. The arrest of Mohammad Barakeh, head of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, is an attack on the entire Arab population. We won't give up our right to protest and oppose the war.

https://x.com/AidaTuma/status/1722560059190788146?s=20

Thanks for linking this letter above. https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/11/an-open-letter-from-jewish-students

When you realise that the signatories haven't even graduated from university but are more thoughtful and articulate than 99% of what passes for discourse in this benighted world.. ffs it's humbling

Going to also link to this again. Yes I rolled my eyes too but give it a chance. Very moving and powerful. I watched with my boys and it was a good way into understanding the emotional reality of the history of this situation

https://watch.reelrocktour.com/videos/rr17-resistanceclimbing

Commenting on a rally for Occupation within Israel.

---

Yair Wallach
@YairWallach
Only a handful of people came to this demo. There is very little appetite among the Jewish Israeli public to re-establish the settlements in the Gaza Strip. But those who support this vision have disproportional influence inside the coalition

I’m glad that someone else on here watched it, Tracer. It’s a powerful film.

omg, that rock climbing film. As a devout non-sporty person, I begrudgingly started it and quickly shifted from "I don't care about this" to holding back tears. Everybody should watch that, it's incredibly moving. It's one thing to read news reports about atrocities, but this shows the character of some people there and... man, I hate to be like this but it made the people relatable to me and so the injustice of life there stung so much more.

I think Gaza resettlement is extremely unlikely in the near future, but I would be concerned about people trying to shift the Overton window in that direction for the future

I feel like there’s too much to even post. Like I’m a kid saying “omg go outside and look at the moon” except it’s “holy shit just look at the news”

Ghassan Abu Sitta
@GhassanAbuSitt1
·
2h
Shifa hospital has collapsed. Wounded and staff leaving in droves. Missile attacks this morning on outpatient dept. which housed internally displaced.

listened to a radio interview with NYT correspondent and it was so disturbing in its bland presentation of the reality and future for gaza i could barely function. "there will be nothing there but rubble." like documenting horrific atrocities and then concluding "what a pity, really." xp

The head of "HonestReporting," whose report led Israeli politicians to call for the extermination of Palestinian journalists, now says they were just "raising questions" without evidence and, despite their name, "we don’t claim to be a news organization" https://t.co/JHdRaJWzjp

— Vincent Bevins (@Vinncent) November 10, 2023

Jfc

was this the "photojournalists knew about the 10/7 attack ahead of time" thing?

yup

this is too fucked up, humans are monsters

The Israeli govt. has also been really leaning into the "Pallywood" thing too, which is revolting beyond words.

Got a whole series of tweets about "pallywood" that I couldn't bring myself to post.

saw a gop congress member spouting this BS

for awhile I was legit wondering what Adam Pally had to do with this mess

The Palestinian-American writer Fady Joudah has lost 50 members of his extended family since October 7.

https://lithub.com/israel-has-killed-over-50-members-of-this-poets-family/

https://cdn.subsplash.com/documents/J7TGX3/_source/44d5112a-5b66-44d2-b97e-0f3cc6efbc1e/document.pdf

worth a read imho

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of Palestinians sheltering from the Israel-Hamas war at Gaza City’s main hospital fled south Friday after several reported strikes in and around the compound overnight. They joined a growing exodus of people escaping intense urban fighting in the north — including near other hospitals — as Gaza officials said the territory’s death toll surpassed 11,000.
...The Israel army says Hamas’ military infrastructure is based amid Gaza City’s hospitals and neighborhoods, and that it has set up its main command center in and under the largest hospital, Shifa — claims the militant group and Shifa staff deny.
...More than 100,000 Palestinians have fled south over the past two days, according to Israel, but they still face bombardment and dire conditions. Reported strikes on or near at least four hospitals in northern Gaza overnight underscored the danger for tens of thousands more who had crowded into the facilities, believing they would be safe.

BATTLES AROUND HOSPITALS
Early Friday, at least three strikes over several hours hit the courtyard and the obstetrics department of Shifa Hospital, according to Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson at the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
A video of the courtyard recorded the sound of incoming fire waking people in makeshift shelters, followed by shouts for an ambulance. In the blood-spattered courtyard, one man writhed, screaming on the ground, his leg apparently severed.

Al-Qidra blamed the attack on Israel, a claim that could not be independently verified. The Israeli army said one strike at Shifa was the result of a misfire by militants targeting its troops nearby.

For weeks, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians — reaching as many 60,000 this week, according to the Health Ministry — have been sheltering in the Shifa complex.

The overnight strikes triggered a mass exodus of the displaced. About 10 a.m., large numbers packed up their belongings and began walking toward the south, five people who were among those who left told The Associated Press.

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Hamas-run Health Ministry, told the Qatar-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera that more than 30,000 displaced people, medical workers and patients remain in the hospital.

...At the same time, Shifa has been overwhelmed by thousands of wounded, even as it operates with minimal power and medical supplies.

...The director of Shifa, Mohammed Abu Selmia, said Israel demanded the facility be evacuated, but he said there was nowhere for such a large number of patients to go.

...Tens of thousands of new evacuees from the north, some from Shifa, flowed down Salah al-Din road — the central spine running the length of the Gaza Strip — and reached the central city of Deir al-Balah on Friday. With no fuel for vehicles, the crowds walked for hours as explosions echoed a short distance away. Among them were wounded and older people.

They arrived hungry, exhausted and with a stew of emotions: relief, rage, and despair.

Reem Asant, 50, described seeing bodies on the streets as he and others made their way out of Gaza City, trying to avoid shelling.

“We’re talking about children killed in a hospital,” shouted one man, Abu Yousef. “Hundreds of women killed every day. Houses collapsing on the heads of civilians. … Where are human rights? Where is the United Nations? Where is the United States? Where is the International Criminal Court? Where is the entire world?”

The Israeli military announced an expanded six-hour window Friday for civilians to escape northern Gaza along Salah al-Din, the route used since last weekend. It also announced the opening of a second route, along the coastal road, after an agreement announced by the White House a day earlier.

More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began. Israel estimates that more than 850,000 of the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza have left, according to military spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

https://cdn.subsplash.com/documents/J7TGX3/_source/44d5112a-5b66-44d2-b97e-0f3cc6efbc1e/document.pdf

worth a read imho

Do you agree with this? I read it and thought it was trash thinking. He says no one should argue for a cease fire because 1) Israel and Hamas will ignore it so why bother 2) Calling for a cease fire will increase antisemitism; not sure how you weigh the lives of thousands of dead children and noncombatants against "antisemitism" but whatever 3) A cease fire will mean Hamas reasserts control over Gaza.. which I guess is somehow worse than hundreds of people dying every day 4) Hamas wants to destroy Israel. so.. I guess Israel needs to just keep killing kids.

The author keeps agonizing over apparently irresolvable moral choices. He says "the clarity for which we hunger is a mere illusion." No. On the question of war and killing of Gazans there is clarity. The students at Brown articulated it very simply:

Our Torah commands:

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” - Exodus 23:9

And we must heed. Palestinians are our cousins, our peers at Brown, natives of the land, human beings whose lives matter. You shall not oppress a stranger.

We write these words from the diaspora, and it is from here that we wish to better our world. As we grapple with millennia of Jewish struggle and survival, we will not abandon our Palestinian cousins and peers, or let them stand alone. This genocide cannot continue.

Not in our names. With or without our names: Never.

Stop the killing. Then you can worry over Hamas and antisemitism and everything else.

In fact I think we should let Israel say they won. You win! You really did it. You fuckin killed soooo many people. Probably got a ton of militants. Several thousand children. Nobody can say you didn't go the extra mile. Take the W. Stop fucking killing people.

Oh but tracer... *shakes head* You're so naive... It's actually quite complex....

Let's suppose that happens. Let me first say there is strong evidence of crimes against humanity by Israel and Gaza and that I assume we all want the killing to stop. And for those crimes to be held to justice.

Given that Hamas has stated that its goal is a permanent state of war (“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times), suppose Israel does at this time heed to call for a total cease fire.

How would you have Israel respond when Hamas then launches the first rocket into Israel?

With compassion and utmost respect for the people of Gaza

And what does that look like after the first rocket is launched? The second?

I read that Hamas fired a couple of rockets into Tel Aviv today actually. Two women were sent to a Tel Aviv hospital and treated for shrapnel injuries.

I don't know what to tell you Felicity. The killing has to stop. Israel controls that right now. We can sort the rest out later.

I agree the killing has to stop and I also believe that Hamas should be treated as if it has agency.

I also believe that treating Palestinian people with respect includes being interested in what the people of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank want.

From what I read, the Palestinian Authority is willing to consider a two state solution.

How would you have Israel respond when Hamas then launches the first rocket into Israel?

Stop funding them maybe?

As long as Israel kills and controls Palestinians there will be rockets. The only way to achieve security is to work towards peace immediately.

Yes, but that wasn't my hypothetical.

The question of "how do we deal with the radical organization we promoted to undermine a moderate organization in order to undermine the entire Palestinian movement" really merits a big old "should have thought of that at the time" IMO.

Agreed. And here we are.

My hypothetical is exactly what you are asking for. I am not against it. I am wondering what, in your mind happens next, given what we know now.

Between the iron dome and IDF and increased security and scrutiny, how likely is it that Hamas can immediately repeat Oct 7th? If a ceasefire is met with Hamas continuing to send rockets, which get shot down, and don't warrant the response of the killing of thousands of innocent people, maybe that's a naive high road to take, but seems like a better idea to me.

Rocket attacks prior to 2023 killed people in small numbers - 13 one year, 10 another, etc.. If rocket attacks continue after a ceasefire, that's a risk Israel has to accept for being an occupying power. Stop undermining the PA, encroaching on and attacking the West Bank, etc. maybe there's a chance for change from below in Gaza that further minimizes the rocket risk over time.

Thing is, Israel doesn't want that.

The tentative next steps you describe Felicity sounds like a description of 1993, but disregards the ambitions of Likud and their right wing settler base; the strategies of encroaching containment, displacement and violence that structure the apartheid regime; and the Israeli States' persistent efforts to entrench Hamas' position in Gaza while using this as an excuse to further their campaign against a captive citizenry. Recourses to e.g. a two state solution have been entirely hollow since the assassination of Rabin imo. A realistic assessment of the future of the region needs to begin by taking the Israeli state at it's actions rather than how it (increasingly half-heartedly) represents itself on the global stage. It's worth looking at Israeli media in recent days, let alone years, to find a mirror of the rhetoric quoted here from Hamas, though it rarely faces similar opprobrium.

I am going by what the Palestinian Authority has reportedly stated itself about being open to a 2-state solution.

Not sure how you got all those other assumptions. but please do not interpret my failure to mention every aspect of this situation as disregarding them.

It seems to me that if supporters of a cease fire would also clearly state that they disagree with Hamas' mission to eliminate the existence of Israel that would go a long way.

But I don't think support for the existence of a state of Israel at all (even in a hypothetically perfect world where Likud and settlers have been brought to justice for their crimes against humanity) has been at all clear. Which was my takeaway from that letter outdoor miner posted.

And why I was kind of making the point that mocking these kinds of serious moral discussions is not something I approve of.

In other words, to demand compassion I think you have to practice compassion. Which was one thing I appreciated about the letter from the students at Brown.

It seems to me that if supporters of a cease fire would also clearly state that they disagree with Hamas' mission to eliminate the existence of Israel that would go a long way.

Respectfully, I seriously doubt this. Also, Emmanuel Macron is calling for a ceasefire now; it’s not exactly a marginal position (except in the US). Bernie finally said it too.

Good post, plax

In other words, to demand compassion I think you have to practice compassion.

Why? also is demanding an end to indiscrimate slaughter of hospitalized children and targeted murder of journalists who might document the slaughter demanding “compassion” or basic non-disgusting behavior?