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

As requested. WmC do you want to close the other thread?

Yair Wallach, who is an Israeli academic at SOAS very much not sympathetic to Likud/Bibi, is a good source on twitter atm, but like all the content out there atm, proceed at your own risk.

He retweeted this video of a young woman from one of the kibbutzes (kibbutzim?) that was attacked earlier:

By far the most powerful Israeli response I have seen.

This 19 year old girl survived the horrific massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri.

This is her message to her fellow Israelis and to the world.

Watch the whole thing.pic.twitter.com/qSPKZX4pzg

— Benzi Sanders (@BenzionSanders) October 14, 2023

Thanks, gyac.

Chotiner and Sari Bashi, the program director at Human Rights Watch:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-humanitarian-catastrophe-in-gaza

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W43C8xhh5E

Sam & Emma interviewing Omar Shakir, Israel & Palestine Director at HRW this morning

looks like David Dayen in there too

Yes, but trying to ask a question of the guest when Sam is in interview mode is a tall order

Why is our political class so invested in suppressing criticism of the apartheid regime? The answer is obvious. Western states support Israel in order to maintain their power at a crucial crossroads of world trade. Challenging that power is impermissible, because any attempt to hold Israel accountable for its crimes is – by definition – an attempt to hold our own states accountable for their involvement in them. Not only are our rulers prepared to let Israel level Gaza; they will even provide it with diplomatic cover and military supplies.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/impending-genocide

As noted, I know numerous IRL people with Israeli flag avatars saying that they stand with Israel no matter what.

Plus I know IlXorz and others who almost uniformly condemn Israel as a brutal apartheid state that continues to use "but the Holocaust" as a laminated carte blanche for every atrocity the IDF wishes to commit. (There is a bit of a strawman in there but that's another topic for another time.)

I have met exactly zero people in between. I know it is not about me and/or my feelz. And I don't love "both sides"ing US politics either. The discourse is polarized and will remain so.

Absolutely no-one has talked about this situation at work, there's been no conversation about it at all, maybe people don't talk about it at work in the US either I don't know.

No offence Tom but that was a post I was hoping could be left behind in the old thread

xp, thank you for that gyac, incredibly moving. I also recommend the NYTimes Daily from today on the situation on the ground in gaza from the perspective of people caught in it, difficult listening:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/podcasts/the-daily/gaza-israel.html

(the ep labeled "Voices from Gaza")

I’m just going to say that I am not in-between on this issue, but that should be obvious by now.

xp I know people are all about bearing witness but I find this stuff incredibly upsetting.

I don’t think it was mentioned but Humza Yousuf who is Scotland’s first minister has family trapped in Gaza. I am linking this video as I find this content extremely upsetting.

Bernard's mother and family went out of their way to tell me that they would be praying for my family in Gaza. We hugged, we cried, and we promised to re-dedicate ourselves to peace and to be unequivocal; no innocent man, woman, or child should pay the price of another's actions. https://t.co/Vv1fz9gXqJ

— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 13, 2023

Also, for context on the Kibbutz Be'eri post and those less familiar with the situation of the past 15-20 years (and again disclaimer I am hardly an expert myself): from Ariel Sharon onward, Israeli policy has been increasingly tilted toward a phony sort of "disengagement." In my mind, it traces back to the building of the West Bank wall although that could be simplistic take. But Netanyahu has turbo-charged this idea, basically that Israel could just kind of ignore the territories (at least other than soldiers stationed in the West Bank) rather than engage in any more ongoing negotiations, that the West Bank could continue to develop economically even without full agency or freedom, and that Gaza would be the kind of counterexample (i.e. life would be worse than in the West Bank) as long as Hamas was there. That terrorism could simply be prevented or minimized through "security," the settlements in the West Bank could continue quietly, and most Israelis would just live their lives and not worry.

Netanyahu is also notoriously corrupt and venal, and he has maintained power through a coalition with right-wing settler and religious parties, giving both more power (which also angers the more secular wings of Israeli politics as Israel gradually takes on additional trappings of theocracy, though it is hardly a full theocracy).

Netanyahu also favors his voters. The kibbutzes near Gaza tend actually to be center-liberal to left. They are not Netanyahu voters. There is a strong sense that Netanyahu "neglected" these areas as the girl expressed in her video, and that is also reflected in the sense that he neglected security near the Gaza border. I genuinely do not know whether Netanyahu "allowed" the attack but I seriously doubt it for reasons I stated in the prior thread. I think this was more hubris and stupidity and myopia.

"I don’t think it was mentioned but Humza Yousuf who is Scotland’s first minister has family trapped in Gaza. I am linking this video as I find this content extremely upsetting."

Mentioned this in the last Israel thread.

You can count on one hand the number of European leaders who have talked about Palestinians as human beings

And they’re all backpedaling now given protests and public pushback.

The President of the University of Pennsylvania has released her 3rd or 4th public statement apologizing for letting a Palestinian writers conference take place last month

The President of the University of Pennsylvania has released her 3rd or 4th public statement apologizing for letting a Palestinian writers conference take place last month

people are so fucking gross

Public statements issued by university presidents are generally tailored to a narrow and specific segment of the public, mainly anyone with influence over university revenues or endowments. They are paid to know how to read that room.

Aimless, we know. No offense.

Well, yeah. When you've got Dick Wolf threatening your donations because you let Palestinians into a building named after him...

a name like Dick Wolf must never be besmirched

Always guarantee the BBC will always be fucked.

The BBC admits that it misled the public about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the UK. pic.twitter.com/oi4nVf5DN7

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) October 16, 2023

i think about this poem by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish all the time pic.twitter.com/jv5WOOjobb

— هستی hasti (@youarehasti) October 16, 2023

xp - That retraction was also poorly phrased and could be misleading.

This is @GhassanAbuSitt1, a surgeon who is currently saving the lives of Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza. He's just reported that counter terrorism police have showed up at his house in the UK and harrased his family.pic.twitter.com/GOvl5aQLHG https://t.co/bugmmZPAMM

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 16, 2023

That retraction was also poorly phrased and could be misleading.

glad i'm not the only one who thought this

OTM

I know this is old news, but it still blows my mind that the range of Acceptable Opinions on Israel is narrower in the West than it is in Israel.

That Darwish poem is great. Notable that Armenians were just cleansed from Artsakh by Azerbaijan and absolutely no-one in the west cared.

Yup. Armenia could be invaded in the next few weeks btw.

xxp two words: Social Media.

Nuanced discussions are often lacking in the echo chambers of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. The only place where I've seen nuanced discussions about the topic are on platforms that favor more nuanced discussion, such as ILX and (yes, believe it or not) Reddit.

I do wonder if the "outrage economy" of clickbait extremism online and the 24 hours news cycle will finally hit a limit of societal acceptability in western democracies, but I'm not holding my breath, they still make $$$

"We called a pro-palestinian march pro-Hamas. We accept that this was a thing that we said". WTF.

Now here's the weather.

True, I understand in theory how misinformation supposedly works. But I'm finding it extremely challenging to trust some of the news sources being cited and finding myself turning to reddit, and other news sources that I don't normally consult trying to see what areas of dispute exist over even just the factual reporting.

xp

Interestingly enough, a private forum I participate in is completely avoiding talking about this, and honestly it might be for the best.

The ukpolitics sub is overall fanatically pro-occupation and pro-genocide, and they are gradually losing their shit as they observe the public becoming turned off by this stance. Also they are usually witheringly critical of the Tories but have suddenly become staunchly supportive of Sunak and Braverman.

Are you taking about Reddit or something

I have met exactly zero people in between.

To the extent I've talked to people about this, almost everybody I know IRL is "in between" the two positions you describe.

Reddit is a paragon of “nuanced discussion” now. We are truly fucked.

Actually was just thinking about this specific issue in non-Reddit terms which still definitely apply to Reddit. How this conflict is a godsend for the extreme right (and whatever apologists they may have claiming to be “leftist”). Because it so thoroughly divides actual leftists from liberals steeped in realpolitik or whatever they’re on.

a name like Dick Wolf must never be besmirched

There's nothing decent to besmirch. The Law & Order "franchise" is a formulaic, sensationalist pile of shit. All 1,316 episodes of it.

Also pretty depressing how my social media feed was blissfully Ben Shapiro-free until various people decided his thick-headed, one-dimensional take on the Middle East was the voice of reason this past week.

xxp two words: Social Media.

Nuanced discussions are often lacking in the echo chambers of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. The only place where I've seen nuanced discussions about the topic are on platforms that favor more nuanced discussion, such as 4chan and (yes, believe it or not) Stormfront.

We get it. You don't like Reddit.

I don’t like social media illiterates upholding a literal right wing extremist-captured disinformation service as their go-to for balanced discussion.

lol what

Lol hey i wasnt even posting here viborg

Yes, the famously extremist platform, reddit

Extremely milquetoast maybe

Burning readers is much better than just burning books.

are you familiar with this charade Aimless? The IDF murder a family in cold blood and find a copy of Mein Kampf in arabic under the settee ... RESULT!

Even if they didn't plant the book and it was genuinely owned by a resident of that home, that in no way justifies what Israel is doing in Lebanon.

If you apply this sort of reasoning fairly and equably you get this result: In a Mossad-owned library almost certainly there exists a copy of "MEIN KAMPF — IN ARABIC"!!! Therefore we must bomb Mossad, burn Mossad, and snuff Mossad out.

also that photo is completely without context, it could be a decade old

Pretty good (slightly annoying interludes in this twitter thread aside) on the US-Israeli r/ship

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2042175243289088185.html

Just got round to reading this obit:

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/47227

Really breaks you.

https://archive.ph/QQZjU

I literally had to go see this for myself. Sure enough. Apple Maps has removed almost every town in Lebanon from the map while keeping every podunk town in Israel and Syria clearly marked. https://t.co/gD7xGjEThN pic.twitter.com/UfUJKU5gcK

— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) April 12, 2026

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strike-kills-infant-girl-south-lebanon-during-fathers-funeral-2026-04-12/

The URL is enough

this is a good, poignant piece: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/how-israeli-offensive-destroyed-entire-villages-in-lebanon

Apple are actually erasing South Lebanon villages off the digital maps as Israel wipe them out.

did Apple Maps have those village names beforehand?

I honestly don't know the answer to that but fuck Apple anyway

No village names shown in the north either, nothing north of Tripoli.

https://i.ibb.co/tTv8Tvcn/Screenshot-2026-04-13-at-07-25-00.png

https://archive.ph/yaiSy

pretty wild Haaretz interview with an IDF spokesperson

‘I wished for death’: Sexual violence in Israel’s prisons is an ‘organised state policy’

Palestinian testimonies reveal how sexual violence, including rape using objects and dogs, is approved by 'highest levels' of Israeli leadership

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n07/eyal-weizman/all-they-will-find-is-sand

May the people who denied or downplayed what was happening ever know peace.

nagl x1000

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/20/israel-soldier-jesus-statue-sledgehammer-lebanon

ah now that they will apologize for; not this though:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/16/israel-escalates-attacks-on-medics-in-lebanon-with-deadly-quadruple-tap

Male soldiers have also filmed themselves rummaging through underwear drawers in houses in south Lebanon whose occupants were displaced and wearing the intimate clothing of women while mocking them.

Sadly seen videos of this disgusting behaviour in both Gaza and Lebanon.

I wonder how the pro-Israel, End-Times evangelicals explain this to themselves

The Israeli military is conducting a criminal investigation after a soldier was photographed striking a Catholic statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s military officials said they had determined that an image circulating on social media showing the incident was authentic. The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off a cross.

I don't know if they worry about the details, "Armageddon a-comin'" can cover a lot of things.

those people are going to hell anyway iiuc

Zionist evangelicals are also anti-Semites, doubt they’d care. The Huckabees of the world have really taken Christ’s message of “the means justify the ends” to heart.

oops… but also still kind of true

oops… but also still kind of true

Mike Huckabee might only have that job another couple years, I'm sure he's eager for it to happen soon while he's at ground zero.

Total moral bankruptcy:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/21/rabbi-who-boasts-bulldozing-palestinian-homes-light-torch-israel-national-day

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/21/israeli-soldiers-using-sexual-assault-to-force-palestinians-out-of-west-bank-report-says

not depraved enough for the EU though: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/21/eu-foreign-ministers-reject-proposal-suspend-association-agreement-israel

Not sure I'll read this book but it looks interesting

“Having claimed to be the definitive answer to antisemitism,” he writes in What Went Wrong?, “Israel is now the best excuse for antisemites everywhere, a nation whose addiction to violence and oppression, reliance on great powers and financial clout, and constant harping on the horrors of the Holocaust as an excuse for untethered violence against Palestinians are making even some of its erstwhile supporters shrink from it in discomfort, or horror and disgust.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/21/omer-bartov-israel-zionism-genocide

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/world/middleeast/israel-soldiers-statue-lebanon-replaced.html

Two Israeli soldiers have been pulled from combat duty and given 30-day jail sentences after one photographed the other swinging what appeared to be a sledgehammer at the head of a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

Other troops who stood by but did nothing to intervene, the military said, have also been summoned and could face disciplinary action.

The military replaced the damaged statue with a gleaming new sculpture of the crucifixion of Christ and released a photo of it.

The extraordinarily swift administration of military justice by Israel was a tacit acknowledgment of the reputational damage the incident had done to the country, more than the seriousness of the crime.

The incident occurred in Debl, a Christian village in Lebanon a few miles from the Israeli border. The village is in an area that the Israeli military seized as a buffer zone before a cease-fire with Hezbollah went into effect late last week.

The photograph surfaced online Sunday, sparking widespread outrage in Israel and beyond, and demands for harsh punishment of the soldiers.

Experts said the act of vandalism reflected both ignorance and a growing hostility to Christians among some Israeli Jews, who see Christianity as a form of idolatry or Christian proselytizing as a threat.

The incident also prompted immediate and profuse apologies from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its foreign minister, Gideon Saar.

In a statement Tuesday, Israel’s military expressed its “deep regret” and said that its chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, had condemned the incident as “a moral failure.”

The Israeli military purchased the new statue and had erected it by late Tuesday. What had been a fairly humble-looking object of worship now was a shiny rendering of Jesus in silver- and gold-toned metal on a reddish-brown cross, beneath the familiar abbreviation “I.N.R.I.” — Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

so disgusting that this is the only IDF action facing any accountability, as Rob and others have suggested. If that statue had been a Lebanese person it wouldn't even be a story at this point.

oh no a statue

well they know that American Evangelicals voice the primary calls to continue a Zardoz-like spewing of weapons, so a thirty day sentence will buy them time for everyone to forget about this

Teaching this tomorrow, unlikely to get much pushback. https://stevesalaita.com/the-free-speech-exception-to-palestine/

From Al Jazeera regarding Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel:

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has reacted to Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem’s rejection of direct negotiations with Israel, warning that the latter was “playing with fire”.

“If the Lebanese government continues to take cover under the wing of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation – fire will break out and engulf the cedars of Lebanon,” said Katz, according to a statement issued by his office that was carried by AFP.

His comments were reportedly made to UN envoy to Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

Earlier today, Qassem issued a statement saying talks with Israel would not benefit Lebanon and calling on the government to “back down from their grave sin” that is putting the country “in a spiral of instability”.

Addressing frequently asked questions and allegations about MSF’s work in Gaza

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides a vast amount of critical healthcare in Gaza, Palestine, yet even this is not enough to meet people’s overwhelming needs. At a time when people need more assistance, Israel has enacted restrictive rules to stop the work of 37 NGOs, including MSF, in Gaza and the West Bank. This comes on top of the intimidation, pressure, and smear campaigns that we and other aid organisations have faced from Israeli authorities while working in, and speaking out about, Gaza and the West Bank.

always terrible news -

Soldiers in the field told Haaretz that much of what they do now isn't directly fighting Hezbollah, but systematically destroying buildings in villages in southern Lebanon. "The only mission is to continue the destruction," one officer said. "There is no other mission." The IDF believes this systematic destruction of Shi'ite villages will prevent villagers from returning home. Another commander said that, contrary to the IDF's claim that the soldiers are destroying "terrorist infrastructure" in these villages, the destruction goes well beyond that, writes Yaniv Kubovich

yeah there's a video of the IDF destroying a big solar farm in Lebanon, which powers a village.. no other reason but to destroy their power supply

An Israeli reservist shot 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan in the head just outside the western gate of the Mughayyir boys’ secondary school, where he was studying in ninth grade.

Aws collapsed instantly, bleeding heavily. More shots rang out as his friends ran to his side, picked up his now-limp body and rushed him out of the line of fire, their path along the school wall marked by a trail of their classmate’s blood.

Footage from inside the building showed terrified children and teachers crouched in stairwells, shouting at others to get down. Another video captured the shooter, a reservist in partial military uniform, taking aim at the school from the hillside above.

West Bank

A shame that the “Israel to World: Suck it” thread is locked, that’s where a majority of posts from the past 2.5 years actually belong.

otm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/05/jonathan-pollard-israel-gaza-ethnic-cleansing

💢 Israel killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the overall commander of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades and the group’s leader in Gaza, in a strike on a residential building and vehicle in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Friday evening. His wife and daughter were killed alongside him. At least 7 people were killed in total, including 3 children, and more than 50 wounded, including 20 children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Known as the “Ghost of al-Qassam” for his operational secrecy, al-Haddad joined Hamas at its founding in 1987 and rose to become its most senior military commander in Gaza, assuming the role after Israel killed his predecessor Mohammed Sinwar in May 2025.

Israel had placed a $750,000 bounty on him in November 2023 for his role in the October 7 attack, and according to biographical accounts he survived at least six previous assassination attempts.

The strike came despite the October ceasefire and was approved by Israel’s political echelon approximately ten days prior, Israel’s Ynet reported, with al-Haddad under continuous surveillance before the attack on his family home was carried out upon receiving sufficient certainty of his location.

Since the October ceasefire was agreed to, Israel has killed around 900 people in Gaza according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Funeral services were held Saturday outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

love too ceasefire

UPDATE: Dozens of planes carrying ammunition from US bases in Germany have landed in Israel, Channel 13 reports

WOW

A website is DOCUMENTING Israel’s crimes with GEOLOCATION, dates, categories of crimes, and footage of the incidents themselves.

One click and you can see EXACTLY what Israel did.

An enormous digital archive built for ACCOUNTABILITY.

Link: https://t.co/jwdiC3h3ID

Direct… pic.twitter.com/wYekf0Cz6p

— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws1) May 23, 2026

excellent work that builds on what was done in the Hague to indict Netanyahu of war crimes. pity is that the international mechanisms for accountability have so far not been able to function as they should, almost entirely due to the intentionally genocide-blind policies of the USA