[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Which would make no difference if they no longer have military capability. They would need a long time to rebuild that.

Israeli Hasbara 101:
1. We haven't heard reports of deaths, will check into it.
2. Palestinians were killed, but by a faulty Hamas rocket.
3. Okay, we killed them, but they were terrorists.
4. Okay, they were civilians, but they were being used as human shields.
5. Okay, there were no fighters in the area, it was our mistake, but we don’t target civilians, like Hamas.
6. Okay, we've killed far more civilians than Hamas, but look at how terrible other countries are!
7. Why are you still talking about Israel? Are you some kind of anti-semite?

Which would make no difference if they no longer have military capability. They would need a long time to rebuild that.

If you really think that's a likely outcome I've got some ocean side property in the middle of Kyrgyzstan to sell you.

Anyone who falls for hasbara should have their critical thinking abilities questioned.

We still rambling on about conventional military capability? What an irrelevance. Conventional warfare is already an aberration in this age of asymmetrical warfare. Palestine will continue to wage asymmetrical warfare, because they will fight however they have to to expel the colonizer.

Zionists live in this strange reality where if you murder enough people, eventually their friends and family will realize they were wrong for resisting! As any Zionist will tell you, the Battle of Britain really broke the British will to fight! It didn't increase their determination! It didn't convince them that their enemies are barbarians who have to be stopped! Right? That's how that happened, right? Or during the struggle for Irish independence, the burning of the city of Cork really made the Irish realize that maybe opposing British rule is wrong. Right? Right? I'm sure we can all come up with endless such examples. Attacks on civilians really make people want to stop resisting, right?

The Israeli army is reinforcing its positions within the Gaza Strip, ostensibly before a long-telegraphed assault on Rafah and the Hamas brigades it says are present there.

Rafah’s population has swollen after hundreds of thousands of desperate families fleeing from the rest of Gaza sought what shelter they could from Israel’s relentless attacks.

The southern city has not been spared Israeli attacks from the air as Israel has threatened for weeks to invade it by land, spurring international concerns about the potential impact on Palestinian civilians there.

Under pressure from its allies in the United States and the West as well as pressure from its neighbour Egypt, Israel appears to have permitted the building of a refugee camp at Khan Younis, north of Rafah.

About 40,000 tents are reported to have been bought by Israel while others, of unknown provenance are already in place outside Khan Younis. How 1.4 million people would be housed in those tents remains unclear, as do the details of an Israeli announcement on Wednesday that it had determined other, “safer” zones for the evacuees.

Gaza’s fate beyond any Israeli assault on Rafah remains unknown.

Why Rafah?
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reportedly told Netanyahu that not launching a land assault on Rafah meant he would have failed in his mission to protect Israel.

But the Israeli government also reportedly told Egypt on Friday that it would give a “last chance” to a potential captive release deal before invading, according to The Times of Israel, which quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying “a deal in the near future or Rafah”.

Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet who is seen as a more moderate figure and entered the war cabinet only after the war on Gaza began, said on Sunday: “Entering Rafah is important in the long struggle against Hamas. The return of our abductees, abandoned by the 7.10 [Netanyahu] government, is urgent and of far greater importance.” A deal to return the captives, he added, should be taken so long as it does not require that the war end.

Israel says four brigades of Hamas fighters and the group’s leaders remain in Rafah, shielded by a number of captives taken from Israel on October 7, which justifies an assault in defiance of international concern.

Israel has previously sought to combat Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, at other locations, such as al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and declared them “cleared”.

Weeks later, Israeli soldiers and tanks would return to these same locations, killing more civilians and destroying more as the army “recleared” the areas.

“Netanyahu is coming to a strategic political intersection where the centrist bloc in the emergency government – led by Gantz – are pressuring for a hostages deal while the far-right section led by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir signal that a deal that would prevent Israel from initiating an operation in Rafah would not be acceptable for them,” Eyal Lurie-Paredes of the Middle East Institute said.

Judging by Netanyahu’s past, he will at all costs prioritise maintaining his coalition, which has a slight Knesset majority of 64 of 120 seats, Lurie-Paredes continued.

“His calculation is simple: He has full political dependency on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for any future coalition after alienating most other factions of Israeli politics due to his ongoing corruption trial. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are very aware of Netanyahu’s political dependency on them and use it to gain much influence on the government’s policy even though they are not part of the war cabinet,” he said.

Settler ambitions
Since Israel withdrew its 21 settlements and 9,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005, the enclave’s boundaries have held firm while Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been divided up and isolated from each other by settlements, illegal under international law, whose settlers attack Palestinian towns violently, and decisions by Israeli authorities.

Many Israeli settlers have come to see the current conflict as an opportunity to reverse that withdrawal from Gaza, but how much impact they have on decision-making is unclear.

“There has been an Israeli movement to settle in Gaza for decades, so the idea is not new at all. What’s new is the plausibility of the notion,” said HA Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

Several Israeli organisations advocate for the return of Israeli settlers to Gaza, such as Nachala, a group that organised a conference in January calling for Gaza settlements that was attended by Israeli government ministers and members of parliament.

The director of Nachala and a leading figure in the movement, 78-year-old settler Daniella Weiss, says more than 500 families have already “signed up to settle Gaza”.

She also stated that no Palestinians will remain within the enclave after settlement.

While taking the entirety of Gaza may be a step too far, some analysts say Israel or its settler movement may have an eye on splitting Gaza in two and taking the north, cramming the entire Palestinian population into even less space than they had when Gaza was called “the world’s largest open-air prison” by international organisations, including Amnesty International.
The idea has also been suggested on several occasions by Weiss, most recently in a video filmed by Middle East Eye in February.

In the video, Weiss outlines settler plans to march into northern Gaza, taking it piecemeal while Israeli soldiers look on, much as they continue to do as settlers attack people, burn property and encroach on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

“Settling just in the north of Gaza would make such settlements more strategically defensible in comparison to other parts of Gaza,” Hellyer said.

“The notion is serious. We have an Israeli government in office right now that is particularly hostage to far-right elements in order to stay in power, and we don’t have an opposition that is sufficiently resistant to ensure that such an eventuality does not take place.”

In March, Zvika Fogel, head of the Knesset’s National Security Committee, told Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, that “Israel must end the war when Jews settle in the entire northern Gaza Strip”.

Much of northern Gaza was destroyed in the early months of the fighting and now lies in ruins, split off from southern Gaza by a corridor created by the Israeli army and called the Netzarim Corridor.

Last week, the Israeli army replaced the Nahal Brigade, which was operating in the Netzarim Corridor, with two reserve brigades, ostensibly to prepare for future operations.
sraeli security forces initially looked on in late February when a number of settlers stormed the Beit Hanoon (Erez in Hebrew) crossing into northern Gaza, some getting as far as 500 metres (550 yards) inside the Strip and erecting haphazard wooden structures that spoke as much to their symbolism as it did to the setters’ serious territorial ambitions. Eventually, Israeli soldiers forced them back to Israel.

While Netanyahu has denied that Israeli settlements in Gaza are an option, many leading Israeli politicians are known to support the suggestion.

A poll carried out by the Jewish People Policy Institute in January showed that 36 percent of Jewish respondents in Israel believed that Israel should take control of Gaza and 26 percent said they supported the reconstruction of the former settlements.

However, thousands of Palestinians have stayed in northern Gaza and Gaza City, determined to never abandon their homes, and the return of civilians to northern Gaza has been one of Hamas’s central demands during ceasefire negotiations.

Humanitarian consequences
Focusing on the scenario of a ground offensive in Rafah, Israel’s Western allies have retained their concerns about the safety of the 1.4 million people sheltering there after fleeing Israel’s attacks on the rest of Gaza.

Regardless of whether a ground assault happens, conditions in Rafah are dire and not enough is being done about them, Louise Wateridge, a Rafah-based spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera.

People lack food, sanitation, potable water, adequate shelter and healthcare and have had their suffering compounded by a heatwave, which has seen temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The US and others have said Israel must evacuate civilians in Rafah before a land invasion despite there being little evidence that Israel has taken humanitarian considerations into its calculations since October.

Israel for months has been refusing to cooperate with UNRWA, the best placed international agency to deliver aid in Gaza as it has both the teams and the infrastructure to do so.

“UNRWA is not only the backbone of the humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip but also the glue that holds it together,” Wateridge said. “Nothing would be delivered or provided without the coordination of our UNRWA colleagues here.”

It is not clear what agency could administer any camps established for Palestinians evacuated from Rafah or support the traumatised population that will be sheltering there.

Farther south, a pier is being assembled by the US in the Mediterranean Sea to be towed to Gaza to be used to deliver humanitarian aid.

Aid officials have told The Guardian newspaper that the pier will not be positioned in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is most acute, but at the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, where the Israeli army is stationed, ostensibly so that it can guard the supplies.

According to sources quoted by the paper, there are growing fears that the pier will be used to deliver aid to the displaced of Rafah rather than to the north, where it is most needed.

“One of the key arguments for having a dock was to put it farther north so that suppliers could come in more directly to the north,” a UN official said, adding that what was actually being proposed looked more like a “smokescreen to enable the Israelis to invade Rafah”.

Could Israel take Gaza and retain international support?
Protests around the world against the war show no signs of abating, and criticism from governments towards Israel continues to increase.

Whether Israel’s die-hard allies will be able to stem the tide of anger at its destruction of Palestinian lives and infrastructure in Gaza as well as in the occupied West Bank remains to be seen.

So far, despite an increasingly vocal public campaign for Western states to confront Israel over its actions in Gaza, governments have offered only the most tremulous criticism.

Screaming, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and punishment to the point of fainting - this is how, according to the parents of female recruits, the IDF treats those who refuse to enlist in the female observation unit, due to fear of serving in the army after the events of October 7.

After many female soldiers refused to serve as observers on the day of their recruitment a few weeks ago, their parents said that their daughters received harsh treatment, including being yelled at for many hours and deprived of continuous sleep, with the intention of "breaking" them. They were yelled at, humiliated, threatened, and cursed at. They were put under real psychological stress that broke them down and caused them to experience anxiety attacks.

One mother stated, "My daughter has experienced anxiety attacks until now because of everything she went through and how they were pressured to enlist for duty. All these practices were actually torture just to break them to serve in the position. They were told at night that they should sleep under a light and in a noisy place, thus preventing them from continuous sleep. They were also put outside in the sun for hours without even being allowed to scratch their faces. Some fainted there."

A few weeks ago, dozens of female soldiers who were assigned as observers asked to change their assignment following what they described as great anxiety in light of the murders and kidnapping of female observers on October 7.

In addition to this, many testimonies were published about disdain in their assessments regarding a future attack and invasion by Hamas into Israeli territory. The parents of some of the female observers who refused to enlist for duty claim that their daughters were "tortured" under the blazing sun at the Tel Hashomer base and screamed into their ears with the intention of subduing them to enlist by force.

Mothers of traumatized female soldiers speak out
"Everything they asked for led to screaming in their faces. My daughter experienced an anxiety attack and was referred to the emergency room because of it," testified another mother of a soldier who enlisted. "She had the attack because of disgraceful treatment, to say the least, and the fear of serving in the position after what happened on October 7. The treatment of the female observers and what happened to them is a disaster and it is legitimate that they would not want the position. In the emergency department, she underwent hearing tests because of the screams she received in her ear. My daughter said that they shouted at her non-stop.

As a result, the parents of the female observers are shocked and feel hard feelings towards the military system. "The lack of trust in the army is already serious following all the events of the war, and in the end, the army chooses to ignore the problem," shared one of the mothers in anger.

"To abuse 18-year-old girls whose only crime was that they asked for another position? These are many girls who came with high motivation, and a desire to do a meaningful service, and they decided to simply threaten, break, and mentally abuse them. Now they are suffering. They suffered a trauma that is still alive and kicking in them and this is while they are still under the pressure of the trainees. I have lost faith in this system and my anger and frustration are very great. Everything she went through caused anxiety. She told me, "Mom, I think I'm no longer able to be in the army." I don't understand how they treated them in such a horrifying way." Another mother said that after these incidents, her daughter was afraid to enlist in military service in any possible capacity.

I didn't say anything about conventional military capability and I quite aware that the conflict is asymmetric. If most of the militants are killed and most of the underground tunnels destroyed though, then their strength and advantages are still weakened.

Since you appear to be supporting Hamas, I'm a bit confused about what "resistance" means in this case, at least I hope that the raping of women and beheading of children is not it. People who want to support the Palestinian cause should want a two-state solution and the removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank so that the Palestinians can have a country to live in that exists side by side with Israel. If, on the other hand, the purpose of the "resistance" is to dismantle Israel as a state, then I'm afraid that goal is unattainable and it's actually that kind of thinking that perpetuates continued violence on Palestinians (not that the far-right in Israel who support the West Bank settlements are any better but two things can be true at the same time).

Hamas said on Friday it was sending a delegation to Cairo to discuss a hostages-for-truce deal with Israel, hours after US CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.

Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, has been leading efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas and broker a deal for a ceasefire in the Gaza war that began with the terror group’s devastating October 7 attack.

The Hamas and CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, an Egyptian security source said, though it was unclear whether they would meet separately or together.

Hamas said its delegates were traveling to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal for a truce agreement.

“We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfills Palestinians’ demands,” the Palestinian terror group said in a statement.

A US official said the United States believed there had been some progress in talks but was still waiting to hear more.

Citing a Palestinian source, the Kan public broadcaster reported the delegation will not present Hamas’s response to the latest proposal for an agreement. According to the source, the delegation was traveling to the Egyptian capital for further negotiations and will reiterate Hamas’s key conditions for an agreement, chiefly an Israeli commitment to end the war sparked by the October 7 onslaught.

The report said the delegation will be led by senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya and also include Zaher Jabarin and Ghazi Hamad.

As Hamas confirmed the delegation would travel to Cairo, a senior Israeli official lowered expectations that a deal was imminent.

“Even though the mediators are speaking optimistically, Israel has yet to hear that Hamas has agreed to retreat from its maximalist positions,” the senior official told The Times of Israel.

However, the Axios news site quoted senior Israeli officials who said they saw “early indications” that Hamas could agree to the first stage of the Egyptian-crafted, Israeli-backed proposal for a deal — involving the release of women, children, the elderly and the sick — even without an Israeli commitment to end the war, but with fewer hostages to be freed in exchange for more Palestinian security prisoners.

If so, the Israeli officials expect Hamas to set stricter requirements that could lower the number of hostages it will agree to release on so-called “humanitarian” grounds, and increase the number of Palestinian security prisoners to be freed in return, the news site said.

Israel is seeking the release of 33 female, elderly and sick hostages during the six-week first stage of the truce, but Hamas may only agree to release 20 hostages in those categories, according to the report.

A separate report by The Wall Street Journal said Israel gave Hamas one week to agree to the hostage deal on the table, or it will launch its long-pledged offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

The report did not specify when the ultimatum was given, but cited Egyptian officials speaking Friday, meaning Hamas would have until next Friday to agree to the deal.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to enter Rafah for months, claiming repeatedly during that period that an invasion was imminent.

The Journal report said Hamas’s political leadership abroad was handed the latest proposal green-lit by Israel last weekend and was expected to discuss it further in Cairo. However, the terror group’s preeminent leaders in Gaza — namely Yahya Sinwar — have yet to respond to the proposal, and it is unclear whether they’ve even seen it, as they hide in tunnels underneath Gaza.

Hamas’s leadership abroad has offered mixed signals regarding the latest offer, and unnamed Egyptian officials were quoted saying that the terror group was chafing at what it characterized as the proposal’s vague details regarding the length of the truce. Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire bolstered by US guarantees that Israel will respect its terms and fears the current proposal will allow Israel to resume fighting within a short period of time.

The US newspaper said the offer would include a first phase lasting up to 40 days in which up to 33 Israeli hostages would be released. Around this time, the sides would begin negotiations for a more permanent ceasefire. The second phase would last for at least six weeks and see the sides agree to a larger hostage release and commit to a further pause in fighting that could last up to a year.

The report said Hamas and Israel also remained at odds on the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, though the US has said Israel has agreed to the unrestricted return of Gaza civilians to areas cleared by the IDF. As for swapping Israeli hostages for Palestinian security prisoners, the sides have been largely in line with one another.

The Journal’s report on the terms of the Egyptian-crafted offer was similar to those specified in a detailed Lebanese newspaper report on Wednesday. No official text of the proposal has been published.

The Journal said Hamas would likely respond to the latest proposal with an updated offer of its own, rather than rejecting it outright.

An Arab alliance for post-war Gaza?
Meanwhile, according to another report Friday, by The New York Times, officials in Netanyahu’s office were weighing a likely dead-on-arrival plan for post-war Gaza that would see Israel share oversight of the Strip with an alliance of Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The vague plan was likely to be rejected by Israel’s envisioned Arab partners as it doesn’t include an explicit pathway to a Palestinian state. It was also likely to be snubbed by Netanyahu’s far-right partners because it doesn’t explicitly rule out the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza or the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

“Under the proposal, the Arab-Israeli alliance, working with the United States, would appoint Gazan leaders to redevelop the devastated territory, overhaul its education system and maintain order. After between seven and 10 years, the alliance would allow Gazans to vote on whether to be absorbed into a united Palestinian administration that would govern in both Gaza and the West Bank, according to the proposal. In the meantime, the plan suggests, the Israeli military could continue to operate inside Gaza,” the report said. “The proposal does not explicitly say whether that united administration would constitute a sovereign Palestinian state, or if it would include the Palestinian Authority.”

The plan was crafted in November by a group of unnamed businessmen, some of whom are close to Netanyahu, according to the Times. It has been shown to former British prime minister Tony Blair, who was in contact with senior Saudi officials. A Palestinian businessman has also been involved in promoting the idea to US officials.

Qatar is prepared to accept a request from the US for it to expel Hamas’s leaders from Doha and is anticipating one could be made soon, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani last month that Doha should expel Hamas’s leaders if the terror group continues to reject hostage deal proposals, a US official said, confirming reporting in the Washington Post.

The US has blamed Hamas for refusing to accept previous offers and says Hamas is the only obstacle to a deal that would see dozens of the most vulnerable Israel hostages released in exchange for an immediate ceasefire of at least six weeks.

An Israeli official said Hamas is not expected to reject the offer outright, but rather return with an amended offer of its own.

But given that patience with Hamas is running out in Washington, anything other than an affirmative response to the deal on the table might be enough to lead the US to formally ask Qatar to expel the terror group, the source said.

Even if Hamas’s leaders were to be expelled, it is unclear what the impact would be, given that those hosted in Doha have spent most of their time since October 7 in Turkey where their families reside, the official divulged.

Turkey has also come under fire for hosting Hamas officials. But while Turkish authorities are said to have periodically ordered some of those members to leave the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who this week severed all trade ties with Israel, has repeatedly expressed support for the terror group.

At least ten people were wounded after Hamas fired ten rockets toward the Kerem Shalom area along the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday afternoon. At least one of the individuals wounded was in critical condition.

Shortly after the attack, the IDF closed the Kerem Shalom crossing located in the area, halting the entry of humanitarian aid trucks through the crossing which serves as the main entry point for aid.

Several people received medical treatment on the spot for injuries sustained from the rocket fire, and were evacuated to hospitals for immediate medical care. Additionally, a home in Kibbutz Kerem Shalom was hit and damaged as well, according to Israeli media. No injuries were reported in the impact in Kibbutz Kerem Shalom.

Hamas took responsibility for the rocket fire, saying their Al-Qassam Brigades targeted the Kerem Shalom area with 114 mm short-range "Rajoum" rockets.

The rockets were fired from only a couple hundred meters from the Rafah humanitarian crossing, one of the few areas where IDF soldiers still have not entered since the October 27 invasion of Gaza. The IDF said it had some generic intelligence warnings about intent to launch such attacks on IDF soldiers and that there was some kind of rocket alert warning in real-time.

Responding to the rocket attacks, the air force increased its attacks on Hamas command centers and other sites in Rafah, as well as against the locations of the rocket attacks themselves, which it appears came from underground attack platforms.

Unclear what effects Hamas's attack will have on Rafah plans
It was unclear what impact Hamas's latest attack would have on Israeli plans to invade Rafah.

More specifically, whether Israel would move forward sooner to invade Rafah or would still give ongoing hostage negotiations a chance to resolve before taking broader action.

It was also unclear whether if no ceasefire is reached, how prepared IDF soldiers in Gaza, and especially near humanitarian aid centers, would be for additional similar Hamas rocket attacks.

There were questions as well about whether Israeli civilians returning to the Kerem Shalom area in July as scheduled would be impacted and delayed by the current incident.

Israel's cabinet has voted to shut down the offices of the Al Jazeera network operating in the country with immediate effect.

Writing on X – formally known as Twitter – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had decided "unanimously" to close Al Jazeera in Israel. He accused the Doha-headquartered network as an "incitement channel" against Israel.

Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in both English and Arabic, has previously vehemently denied such an allegation and said the Israeli leader had made a "false accusation in a disgraceful manner."

Despite having operated on the ground in Gaza throughout the war, Al Jazeera has long had a difficult relationship with Israel. In April, the Israeli parliament passed a law that would give the government the power to shut down foreign news networks that are viewed as harming national security. Some lawmakers accuse Al Jazeera of being "a mouthpiece of Hamas."

Netanyahu's announcement was immediately echoed by Shlomo Karai, Israel's Minister of Communications. In a statement, Karai said that Al Jazeera will be closed immediately, and its equipment will be confiscated.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Saturday night to demand Israel reach a deal to free hostages held in Gaza and that new elections be held, sparking short-lived scuffles with police.

The rallies, by now a weekly affair, took place hours after a senior Israeli official issued anonymous statements to the press denying reports that Israel would commit to ending the war in Gaza for the hostages’ release.

The comments, widely speculated to have been dictated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, added fuel to protesters’ fury over what they allege is the premier’s refusal to reach a deal aimed at rescuing over 130 hostages and remains of captives, instead preferring to preserve the political support of his far-right coalition partners, who insist that Israel push ahead with plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“We won’t be silent, and you will not silence us until they [the hostages] return,” said Hostages and Missing Families Forum organizer Tom Barkai to a crowd in Jerusalem. “And this is the time to act, the moment to stop counting the days and bring them back now.”

Three people were arrested during the demonstrations in the two cities, including a former aide of Labor MK Naama Lazimi, who herself has been heavily involved in the protests and who accused police of using excessive force.

Carrying posters reading “Stop the war” and chanting for an immediate deal with the Hamas terror group to free the hostages, marchers in the capital initially set out together from the main protest hub of Paris Square, but eventually split off into several groups heading in different directions throughout the city center as police rushed to contain the crowds.

The rallies had been planned to dovetail thematically with upcoming national memorials to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, which Israel and the rest of the Jewish world will mark Sunday night and Monday.

“Everyone must be returned. We will not abandon them as the Jews were abandoned during the Holocaust,” Hanna Cohen, aunt to 27-year-old Inbar Haiman, who was murdered by Hamas with her body still believed to be held in Gaza, told Reuters.

But speeches and sentiment were also largely colored by reports in the Israeli and Arab press that Israel and Hamas could be nearing a deal to halt the fighting and free hostages kidnapped into the Gaza Strip on October 7, which were quickly shot down by an anonymous Israeli official.

“Contrary to the reports, Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our hostages,” the official said in the first of two statements denying indications that the sides had made progress thanks to a US guarantee that a later phase of the arrangement would see Israel halt fighting for good and and pull its forces out of the Strip.

The reports came as a Hamas delegation met in Cairo with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators to discuss a possible deal, after months of fruitless negotiations. Among the toughest issues have been Hamas’s demand that any deal include an Israeli agreement to end the war. The government has insisted that the fight will continue until Hamas is completely destroyed, terming the group’s continued existence an existential threat.

The statement was met with blowback from war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who called on “the source and all other decision-makers to wait for official updates, act with restraint and not become hysterical for political reasons.”

Meanwhile, Ben Gvir hailed Netanyahu for not dispatching a delegation to Cairo and said he expected the premier to keep the promises he allegedly made when the two met on Tuesday: “No to a reckless deal, yes to Rafah.”

“The prime minister knows well what the price is of not honoring this commitment,” Ben Gvir added, in a veiled threat to leave the government.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a similar comment calling for fighting to continue and terming a deal a “surrender.”

The anonymous statements, widely believed to have been issued by Netanyahu, appeared to amplify criticism of Netanyahu as prioritizing his political survival and the backing of Ben Gvir and Smotrich over the hostages’ safety.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, said during a press conference in Tel Aviv that Netanyahu was undermining a chance to save the hostages despite an agreement with Hamas being within reach, accusing him of “committing a crime against his people.”

Outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem, Jon Goldberg-Polin, the father of Hamas-held hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said the family’s decision to approve publication of a video released by Hamas last month showing his son alive was meant to help heap pressure on decision-makers for a deal.

“Ten days ago, we saw and heard our son for the first time in 201 days,” he said. “We were asked if we approve of the publication of the video, and without a second thought we said yes, for one reason. The world, the leaders, the politicians and those partaking in negotiations need a reminder that we are not fighting for a number, but about real people.”

Ella Mor, whose 4-year-old niece Abigail Idan was released from Hamas captivity in a deal last November, told the crowd that Israel could not begin to recover from the devastating attack on October 7 without the return of the hostages.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected ceasefire proposals because he says Hamas's call for a withdrawal of all troops from Gaza and an end to the war is unacceptable.

Mr Netanyahu said agreeing such proposals would "leave Hamas intact" and leave the possibility of another attack in future.

"Surrendering to the demands of Hamas would be a terrible defeat for the State of Israel," he said in a video statement.

Mediated negotiations for a pause in the fighting in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas have been going on in Egypt, but a deal appears some way off.

Mr Netanyahu said Hamas was "entrenched in its extreme positions, first among them the demand to remove all our forces from the Gaza Strip, end the war, and leave Hamas in power".

He said it would allow more "massacres, rapes and kidnapping".

Hamas said in a statement it was "still keen to reach a comprehensive, interconnected agreement that ends the aggression, guarantees withdrawal, and achieves a serious prisoner exchange deal".

The group's chief, Ismail Haniyeh, blamed Mr Netanyahu of "sabotaging the efforts made through the mediators".

The impasse comes after Egyptian media reported "noticeable progress" in ceasefire talks on Saturday.

The proposal put to Hamas had set out a three-stage process for an immediate, six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages, with some sort of Israeli pull-out in exchange.

The Israeli military has told some 100,000 people to leave Rafah and move to what it said is an expanded humanitarian area in the Palestinian enclave.

The evacuation of eastern Rafah, which Israel says is "limited" and "temporary," comes ahead of an expected ground assault on the southern Gaza city, where more than 1.4 million civilians are sheltering.

Cease-fire talks appear to have stalled after hopes were raised for a last-ditch truce deal that would also secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

But talks have not completely collapsed, two sources told NBC News, with CIA Director William Burns in the region and President Joe Biden set to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestinians, forced to move again, fear Rafah assault is imminent
Palestinians are being forced to move once again, and they are increasingly convinced that an Israeli operation in Rafah is coming.

This time, in an unprecedented move, they're being forced out of the city of Rafah along the Egyptian border where more than 1 million Palestinians are taking shelter because they were told it would be safe there.

They were told to get out of the way to allow for new Israeli military operations against Hamas and instructed to go to another area on the Mediterranean coast, which Israel designated as a not-quite-safe but safer zone.

Evacuation orders could be start of 'nightmare scenario,' aid group tells NBC News
Israel's calls for Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate the area to Al-Mawasi, just north of the city, marks "the start of the nightmare scenario that we've been dreading for months," warned Samah Hadid, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

"We’ve been warning against a military operation in Rafah because the consequences will be deadly and devastating for the over 1 million IDPs in the area," Hadid said in a phone interview with NBC News this morning, using the acronym for internally displaced persons.

Hadid said her organization not only fears for the safety of those who remain in Rafah, but also for those who evacuate to the Al-Mawasi area, which she said she does not believe is equipped to handle a mass influx of people. "It doesn't have the humanitarian services and assistance that’s required to accommodate such a large number of displaced people so it’s ... for us, it’s impossible for this area to be designated as a safe area or a humanitarian zone," she said.

Calling on the Biden administration to "use its influence and leverage over Israel" to stop any possible military operation in Rafah, Hadid said: "It is beyond time for the U.S. government to suspend its arms sales" and military aid to Israel.

Biden to speak with Netanyahu this morning to discuss Rafah
President Joe Biden will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning to discuss the potential ground assault on Rafah, according to a National Security Council spokesperson.

An Israeli official also confirmed the two will speak today.

“We can’t speak for IDF operations. We have made our views clear on a major ground invasion of Rafah to the Israeli government, and the president will speak with the prime minister today," an NSC spokesperson said.

"We continue to believe that a hostage deal is the best way to preserve the lives of the hostages, and avoid an invasion of Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering. Those talks are ongoing now," the spokesperson added.

World leaders warn of Rafah offensive as 'massacre' in the making
Leaders in the Middle East and Europe raised the alarm again over an intensified operation in Rafah, warning that already catastrophic humanitarian conditions will worsen.

Ayman Safadi, Jordan's foreign minister, wrote in a post on X that an operation in the southern border city would be an "indelible stain" on the international community. He said "another massacre of the Palestinians is in the making" and that everyone must act to prevent it.

Egypt's foreign ministry released a statement warning that the "escalatory action" puts the lives of more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah at risk.

"Egypt calls on Israel to exercise the utmost restraint and avoid further escalation at this extremely sensitive time in the process of ceasefire negotiations and to spare the blood of Palestinian civilians who have been exposed to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip," the statement said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said that today's evacuation orders signify the worst to come, "more war and famine." Borrell urged Israel to renounce a ground offensive and urged international leaders to act.

According to France 24, the French foreign ministry issued a statement today reiterating its opposition to an intensified Rafah invasion.

"The forced displacement of a civilian population constitutes a war crime," the statement said.

Airstrikes are frequent, drones buzz constantly overhead and an Israeli ground invasion looms large. But on a small patch of sandy wasteland on the outskirts of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, a group of teachers has set up classrooms in tents, determined to continue educating as war rages around them.

“This magnificent scene sends a message to the world: We are a nation that loves to learn and loves education, that rejects ignorance,” Nehad Badria, the principal, said in an address to students as they lined up outside the tents on Tuesday.

The students, all girls between the ages of 6 and 15, listened intently before Badria led them in call-and-response chants. “We love to learn,” they shouted, pumping their fists in the air as they were filmed by an NBC News cameraman. “We are free, Arab Palestine

Set up to serve some of the tens of thousands of children displaced by the fighting in Gaza, the school is named Al Awdah, which means “return” in Arabic, a nod to the hope that students and teachers can one day return to their homes in other parts of the enclave.

Badria said he’d been forced to leave his home in northern Gaza for Rafah, which had a population of around 250,000 before Israeli troops drove many of the strip’s residents south, swelling the city’s numbers

Last month, more than 20 experts from OCHA questioned whether Israel has targeted educational infrastructure deliberately — a strategy they call “scholasticide.” Israel denies accusations that it deliberately targets civilian buildings and has accused Hamas fighters of using them as cover — a charge the militant group denies.

“We saw our students playing between the tents amid the waste and stagnant water, which aggravated the humanitarian, health and environmental disaster,” Badria said, adding: “We said we must return the students to normality and study after being deprived of education for more than seven months.”

The school was overwhelmed with applicants, he said. To cope with demand, the headmaster explained, he and his nine fellow teachers ration lessons for the 600 pupils selected to study there to three days a week for girls and three days for boys, all between ages 6 and 15.

After the students file in through the wire fence surrounding the school, a piece of paper stuck on the entrance of each tent indicates the grade being taught.

Addressing her ninth grade class in English on Tuesday, volunteer teacher Diana Sabouh, 36, asked her class of 24 students to tell her “the beautiful places in Gaza.”

“Al Omari mosque,” one girl replied, referring to Gaza’s oldest mosque, which Palestinian officials say was leveled by an Israeli airstrike. NBC News has verified video of the destruction.

In another class, the sentence “War is cruel” was written on a whiteboard to illustrate a point of Arabic grammar.

Outside, a group of envious boys pressed their faces against the school’s gate, waiting for their turn in class.

Before the war began, UNICEF reported more than 500,000 children already needed mental health and psychosocial support in the Gaza Strip. In February it estimated the number had risen to more than a million.

And at Al Awdah the toll the war has taken on some of the pupils was clear.

Lian Shamaly, 14, said her family had moved several times after leaving their home in Gaza City in the north of the enclave before they ended up in Rafah.

“I heard my teachers were martyred,” she said, adding matter-of-factly that many of her friends had been killed. “No one left, just three or four girls.”

For Shamaly’s classmate Malak Qanoa, 13, the scale of war had already hit home. She said three of her friends and some of her teachers at the school near her home in Gaza City had been killed.

“We’re going to get such a shock finding out who’s dead and who’s alive,” she said.

The Biden administration last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, two Israeli officials told Axios.

Why it matters: It is the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the U.S. has stopped a weapons shipment intended for the Israeli military.

The incident raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government and sent officials scrambling to understand why the shipment was held, Israeli officials said.

State of play: The Israeli officials said the ammunition shipment to Israel was stopped last week.

The White House declined to comment.
The Pentagon, the State Department and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office didn't immediately respond to questions.

Hamas said it has accepted a ceasefire deal proposed by Egypt and Qatar, which seeks to halt the seven-month war with Israel in Gaza, prompting Israel to say it would send a delegation to negotiate – though it warned the proposal remained far from the "necessary requirements."

This comes after the Israeli military called on Palestinians living in parts of eastern Rafah to "evacuate immediately." During nearly seven months of war, more than 1 million Palestinians have fled to the southern city. The US expressed concerns about the evacuations.

Here's what to know about Hamas' response, the framework and more:
What Hamas said: Hamas announced that Ismail Haniyeh, head of its political bureau, has told Qatari and Egyptian mediators that Hamas has agreed to their proposal for a ceasefire agreement. A member of Hamas’ political bureau, Basem Naim, told CNN that Hamas is now waiting for an Israeli response.

Public reaction: As news spread in Gaza of Hamas’ announcement, there were celebrations in the streets in several places, including in Deir el Balah, central Gaza, and in Gaza City. In Tel Aviv, hostage families and their supporters took to the streets as they called on the government to accept the proposal. A similar protest took place in Jerusalem, as demonstrators chanted: "Nothing is more important, every hostage must return." The Hostages Families Forum said in a statement that Hamas' response "must pave the way" for the return of Israeli hostages.

Israel's response: The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said Monday it will send a delegation to the mediators "even though Hamas' proposal is far from Israel's necessary requirements." In the meantime, the war cabinet "unanimously" decided that Israel will continue its operation in Rafah to "exert military pressure on Hamas," it added.

What's in the proposal: Hamas agreed to a framework proposal that diverges from the one Israel had helped craft with Egypt more than a week ago, a senior Israeli and senior US official said. The latest proposal calls for an end to the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not accept, the senior American official said. “It incudes a permanent end to hostilities, which is a red line for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu,” the senior US official said.

Situation in Rafah: Throughout the day, the Israeli air force struck more than 50 targets in the Rafah area, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Monday. Video and images obtained by CNN showed multiple explosions in the Rafah area of southern Gaza on Monday night. Local social media accounts reported the explosions were to the east of Rafah, an area where the IDF had ordered an evacuation of civilians earlier Monday. Palestinians evacuating eastern Rafah described their fear and despair.

Global response: Hamas' Haniyeh spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who welcomed the militant group's decision to agree to a ceasefire deal and urged Israel to do the same. Haniyeh also spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on the Israeli government and Hamas leadership to agree to the ceasefire deal to "stop the present suffering," his spokesperson said. The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed about Hamas' response and where things stand.



Hamas agreed to a different proposal than one Israel helped craft, sources say
Hamas on Monday agreed to a framework proposal, which diverges from the one Israel had helped craft with Egypt more than a week ago, a senior Israeli and senior US official said.

The latest proposal calls for an end to the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not accept, the senior American official said.

“It incudes a permanent end to hostilities, which is a red line for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu,” the senior US official said.
“This is not the same position,” the senior Israeli official said.
The senior Israeli official said the Israeli government was sending a working-level delegation to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in order to better understand the latest proposal and determine whether a deal can be forged.

There are "significant gaps" between Israel and Hamas, Israeli war cabinet member says after Hamas response
There were “significant gaps” between Israel and Hamas, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said Monday after Hamas accepted a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt.

The Hamas version of the proposal “does not correspond to the dialogue that has taken place so far with the mediators and has significant gaps,” Gantz said. “Despite this, we continue to turn over every stone and a delegation will go to Cairo.”
Working for the return of Israeli hostages is a "war goal" and a "supreme moral duty," he added.

“The negotiating team and the professionals continue to work every minute and every moment. ... Every decision will be brought to the War Cabinet — there will be no political consideration.”

An Israeli tank brigade took control Tuesday of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, authorities said, as Israel moved forward with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife's edge. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his country in a video address later Tuesday that he had ordered troops "to operate in Rafah" as his government rejected a cease-fire proposal backed by Hamas the previous afternoon.

The tanks moved in around the Rafah checkpoint after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war, with the militant group saying Monday that it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated cease-fire proposal. Israel quickly insisted the deal didn't meet its core demands and rejected it, though officials said Israel would continue discussing the proposal.

The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the seven-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

As for the proposal that brought brief hope of an imminent truce late on Monday, Netanyahu dismissed it in his video message as an attempt by Hamas "to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah," which he had repeatedly vowed to order.

The Israeli leader confirmed, however, that his government was still engaged in negotiations for a cease-fire, saying he'd instructed his team to "continue to stand firm on the conditions necessary for the release of our abductees, continue to stand firm on the essential requirements for guaranteeing Israel's security."

Israel takes "operational control" of Rafah crossing
The Israeli 401st Brigade entered the Rafah crossing early Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said, taking "operational control" of the crucial crossing. Israel had already fully controlled all of Gaza's border crossings since it launched its war on Hamas seven months ago, but the tanks rolling in on Tuesday marked a significant increase in the Israeli military presence at the Rafah crossing.

Rafah is the primary route for aid entering the besieged enclave and the exit for those able to flee into Egypt.

Netanyahu, in his video remarks on Tuesday, said the operation "serves two main war goals: The return of our abductees and the elimination of Hamas."

Asked Tuesday by CBS News about the nature of the operation in Rafah, an Israeli government official would say only that the prime minister and his Cabinet remained "determined to achieve Israel's war objectives: Destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, free the hostages and ensure that Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel and the civilized world in the future."

U.N. warns of "catastrophic hunger" amid border closures
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, said Tuesday that U.N. aid agencies' vital access to the Rafah crossing was being "denied by COGAT," the Israeli agency that oversees supplies into the Palestinian territories. Speaking with CBS News by phone from Geneva, he said the other major Gaza border crossing in the south, at Kerem Shalom, had also been shut down.

"Rafah crossing is essentially shut down for movements, and we're also told this morning that the other crossing, Kerem Shalom, is also currently closed. So, those two main entry points of aid are not functioning at the moment. They can't be used," Laerke told CBS News' Emmet Lyons. "The impact is frankly catastrophic because, as you know, these two entry points, I would say particularly Rafah, are arteries of aid that goes into the entire Gaza Strip."

UNRWA, the U.N. agency tasked specifically with providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and across the region, echoed that concern in a tweet, saying "continued interruption of the entry of aid and fuel supplies" through the Rafah border gate would severely impact aid distribution across the entire Palestinian territory, and warning that "catastrophic hunger faced by people especially in northern Gaza will get much worse if these supply routes are interrupted."

An Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson declined to immediately comment on the Israeli seizure. Egypt previously has warned any seizure of Rafah could see Palestinians fleeing over the border, a scenario that could threaten a 1979 peace deal with Israel that's been a linchpin of regional security

Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there — in addition to the risk of harming Israeli hostages who could be held captive in the city.

Even as the U.S., Egypt and Qatar push for a cease-fire deal they hope can avert an assault on Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces would move in on the city "with or without a deal" to achieve his government's stated goal of destroying the Hamas militant group in response to its bloody Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Under pressure, Netanyahu vows to order Rafah incursion
"We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice. We will destroy the Hamas battalions there, we will complete all the objectives of the war, including the return of all our hostages," Netanyahu said Tuesday, the day before he met visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Speaking Thursday at a memorial ceremony for IDF soldiers killed in Gaza, Netanyahu acknowledged "differences of opinion within" his cabinet about how to proceed, but he added that a "decision was made," and "we will do what is necessary to win and overcome our enemy, including in Rafah."

Netanyahu is under huge, opposing political pressure from hostage families pushing for a cease-fire agreement to bring their loved ones home from Gaza, and far-right members of his fragile coalition government who've threatened to drop their support for his leadership if he accepts any truce agreement.

Israel has approved military plans for its offensive and has moved troops and tanks to southern Israel in apparent preparation — though it's still unknown when or if it will happen.

About 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza's population — are jammed into the town and its surroundings. Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel's onslaught and now face another wrenching move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault. They live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing U.N. shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.

Why Rafah is so important
Since Israel declared war on Hamas in response to its unprecedented attack, Netanyahu has made it clear that his central goal is to destroy the group's military capabilities.

Israel calls Rafah Hamas' last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip — a densely populated Palestinian territory that Hamas had controlled for almost two decades before this war. Operations across the enclave have dismantled 18 of the militant group's 24 battalions, according to the IDF. But even in northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, Hamas has regrouped in some areas and continued to launch attacks.

Israel says Hamas has four battalions in Rafah and that it must send in ground forces to topple them. Some senior militants could also be hiding in the city.

Why there's so much opposition to Rafah offensive
The U.S. has urged Israel not to carry out the operation without a "credible" plan to evacuate the more than 1 million civilians believed to be taking refuge in Rafah. Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, that sits just across Gaza's southern border from Rafah, has said an Israeli military seizure of the border — which is supposed to be demilitarized — or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with the Jewish state.

Israel's previous ground assaults, backed by devastating bombardment since October, have leveled huge parts of northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis and caused widespread civilian deaths, even after evacuation orders were given for those areas. Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry puts the death toll in excess of 34,000 and says most of those killed have been women and children, though it does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel's military says it plans to direct civilians in Rafah to "humanitarian islands" in central Gaza before its offensive. It says it has ordered thousands of tents to set up new camps for the displaced. But it hasn't given details of its plan, and it remains unclear whether it's logistically possible to move so many people all at once without causing even more suffering for a population already exhausted by multiple displacements and months of bombardment.

The U.N. Secretary-General renewed his warning that a military offensive in Rafah would be "an unbearable escalation, killing thousands more civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee."

Some entry points from Israel to Gaza in the north have been reopened recently, and the U.S. has promised a new, temporary port to bring in more supplies by sea will be ready in weeks. But the majority of food, medicine and other material enters Gaza from Egypt through Rafah or the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing — traffic that would likely be impossible during an invasion.

The U.S. has urged Israel to opt for more pinpoint operations against Hamas in Rafah, without a major ground assault.

Netanyahu's political calculations
The question of attacking Rafah carries heavy political implications for Netanyahu. His government has been threatened with collapse if he doesn't go through with it. Some of his ultranationalist and conservative religious governing partners could pull out of the coalition if he signs onto a cease-fire deal that prevents an assault.

Critics of Netanyahu say he's more concerned with keeping his government intact and staying in power than in Israel's national interest — an accusation he's denied repeatedly.

One of his coalition members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said Tuesday that accepting a cease-fire deal and not carrying out a Rafah operation would amount to Israel "raising a white flag" and giving victory to Hamas.

On the other hand, Netanyahu risks increasing Israel's international isolation — and alienating its top ally, the United States — if it does attack Rafah.

His vocal refusals to be swayed by world pressure and his promises to launch the operation could be aimed at placating his political allies, even as he considers a cease-fire deal. Or, he could bet that international anger will remain largely rhetorical if he goes ahead with the attack.

The Biden administration has used progressively tougher language to express concern over Netanyahu's conduct of the war, but it has also continued to provide weapons to Israel's military, and vital diplomatic support.

Weakened for now. They will rebuild. This is the point I am making. War crimes only further the will to resist. Unless you advocate committing so many war crimes that it breaks the collective will of the Palestinians to ever resist again.


I don't support the rape or murder of Israeli civilians any more than I supported the Allies' rape and murder of German civilians. This all feels like we're in WWII, and schmucks from the German American Federation are going around accusing people who support the allies of wanting all Germans murdered and tortured and raped. Virtually no one actually wanted everything that happened to German civilians to happen. We wanted Germany defeated. I want Israel defeated. I tire of watching the big guy pick on the little guy with billions of US dollars in military funding.

And why should I want a two-state solution? Why should I want a separate-but-equal solution? It's only a minority in Israel or Palestinian that still actually wants a two state solution. Most Israelis want one state that controls all of historic Palestine where the Muslims and Christians are gone or subordinate to Jewish Israelis. I want a single state solution where people's of all religions are equal. Is that so insane a thing to want? Muslims and Christians and Jews in Palestine lived for centuries in relative harmony before the Zionists and their Goyim backers decided they needed to completely ruin that. Israel's existence furthers every vile nationalist argument that sometimes an ethnic group needs a supremacist state where everyone else is subordinate in order to protect themselves. It's apartheid, and we need to not enable it just because Zionist Goys actually found a genocide they've committed that they actually give a damn or feel any regret about. Unfortunately, such Goys only know how to undo genocide by committing or enabling even more genocide.

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that American bombs have been used by Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden said during a CNN interview when asked whether the 2,000-pound bombs sent to Israel have killed civilians.

If the Israeli military launches a ground offensive in Rafah, a city in Gaza where more than one million people are sheltering, the White House will not supply "the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah to deal with the cities," Biden said.

We're not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used," Biden said.

The move would mark a shift in U.S. policy toward the war.

NBC News previously reported that the White House halted a shipment of offensive weapons last week that included 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to a senior administration official.

The IDF is shooting down a significant number of its own drones in the course of operations, The War Zone (TWZ) reported Thursday, citing a US Marine Corps official.

According to Marine Lt.-Col. Michael Pruden, the IDF destroyed 40% of its own uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).

Pruden is head of the Marine Air Command and Control Integration Branch of the Air Combat Element Division within the service's Combat Development and Integration Command (CD&I).

"Something interesting that comes from Israel, 40 percent, 40 percent (this figure was repeated for emphasis), of the UASs ... knocked out" by Israel are instances of "friendly fire," Pruden said during a talk at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition on Wednesday.

He did not provide any additional details of this statistic, including a timeframe, according to TWZ. However, he did imply that this data comes from operations in the Gaza Strip in the current war against Hamas.

While discussing possible reasons for this number of friendly drones that are knocked down, Pruden said, "As Israel's engaging in Gaza, and they're on their front line, they see a small UAS; what are they going to do if it's not identified immediately? They're going to shoot it down."

Pruden said this is the default course of action because the time between when a drone might be detected and when it could execute an attack is usually measured in "seconds."

IDF has previously acknowledged accidental knockdowns of its own drones
Pruden clarified that the IDF has also previously acknowledged accidental knockdowns of its drones. Since the IDF has one of the world's most advanced integrated air defense systems, if this is an issue for Israel’s military, it will likely be an issue for other militaries worldwide.

The US Marine official highlighted a related communication issue in the US military. "How am I putting a small UAS in the sky, thousands of these things, and not telling anybody about it, especially your ground-based air defense and counter-UAS [elements]?"

Pruden sees these mistaken interceptions as a problem that will only increase as the number of drones flying through the air increases in volume.

Israel’s current defense system includes Arrow 3, an exoatmospheric hypersonic anti-ballistic missile, and Arrow 2, an endoatmospheric anti-ballistic missile built by Israel Aerospace Industries. Below them are David's Sling and the Iron Dome, made by Rafael.

The Hamas and Israeli delegations involved in the Gaza truce negotiations left Egypt on Thursday, signalling the failure of efforts by mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar to urge the warring parties to agree on a deal to pause the war.

Sources briefed on the negotiations said CIA director William Burns, the US chief negotiator, also left Egypt on Thursday along with Qatari mediators.

In a statement, Hamas said Israel's military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and this week's takeover of the Palestinian side of the border crossing there with Egypt were “aimed at cutting off the path of the mediators, escalating the aggression and the genocide war”.

“We in Hamas would like to reassert our commitment and adherence to our position of accepting the proposals presented by the mediators,” the statement said.

Hamas said its negotiators flew back to Doha, Qatar, the long-time home of the group's political leadership.

Mr Burns returned to Cairo late on Wednesday to rejoin the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, after a brief visit to Israel, as the negotiators squabbled over key details of the proposed agreement revealed to The National.

Before he left Egypt, Mr Burns held a lengthy discussion with Egyptian officials to relay the Israeli position on the talks, sources told The National on Thursday morning.

He met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, telling him that a deal with Hamas was still possible, according to Israeli media reports.

As in previous rounds of negotiations held over months, no statement was issued on behalf of the participants but the sources said Hamas and Israel were at odds over the frequency and number of hostages the Palestinian group is expected to release if a deal is reached.

Hamas is adamant it would stagger the release of up to 20 hostages still held in Gaza over the first 42 days of the ceasefire, with one hostage released at a time, they said.

Israel has countered by insisting that at least 33 should be freed in the first phase of the proposed deal.

All 33 must be living hostages, Israel has insisted, according to the sources.

Hamas also wants to ensure a “permanent ceasefire” is added to any agreement, the sources said.

Seven months after it carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Hamas is still very much alive and kicking.

It has reportedly reasserted significant civil control in Gaza cities troops swept through and then left. In some areas, Hamas fighters have resumed their rocket fire, including a recent attack on Sderot and the deadly strike on Israel Defense Forces infantrymen near Kerem Shalom on Sunday.

Not only is Hamas surviving, it looks increasingly plucky about its chances to guarantee its return to power.

The recent Kerem Shalom rocket strike that killed four troops was evidence of Hamas’s mood, argued Meir Ben-Shabbat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security adviser.

“It reflects the self-confidence of Hamas commanders who didn’t hesitate to initiate such an attack, from a humanitarian zone, during critical negotiations for the organization despite the risk of damaging a vital supply artery for the population,” said Ben-Shabbat, adding that the strike was intended to stress to Gazans that its attempts to force Israel into a ceasefire “come from a position of strength and not from surrender or fatigue.”

As the weeks go by, the world has shown a diminishing appetite for Israel’s defeat of Hamas. Almost no one talks about the dismantling of Hamas’s military capabilities anymore; the priority among Israel’s closest allies is to arrange a ceasefire and to get the hostages out.

But rather than move with lightning speed to finish the job, Israel’s military appears to have adopted a plodding pace that only allows plenty of time for resistance to the war’s continuation to build up, both abroad and domestically. And that resistance — most notably United States President Joe Biden’s warning that Israel won’t get offensive weapons if it goes into Rafah — will likely slow the campaign even further.

Not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of Israel’s political leadership. The IDF too, in decisions made years ago and after October 7, has played a central role in crafting a campaign that has been adrift for months.

A sluggish campaign
Not everyone agrees that there is something fundamentally wrong with the pace of the war. Ben-Shabbat explained that a long fight is unavoidable given the widespread public support Hamas enjoys, and its deep roots among the population.

Even in light of those challenges, the IDF seems more sluggish than it has in past conflicts, even those that were the most challenging.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the IDF managed to stem two surprise invasions, to counter-attack within the first week, and have both Egypt and Syria on their heels within 19 days.

Low-intensity fighting did continue for months, but only after the IDF very quickly knocked two large, well-armed foes out simultaneously.

Today, managing a two-front war seems an unfathomably tall order for Israel’s military.

“It cannot conduct a serious offensive against Hezbollah while it is fighting Hamas,” lamented Eado Hecht, a defense analyst at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University.

But even focusing on just a single foe — Hamas in Gaza — the IDF has taken its time.

It took three weeks to even begin the ground offensive in Gaza after October 7, wasting valuable time with reservists mobilized and international goodwill still strong.

When it did finally move in, it launched a torpid staged advance into Gaza designed to last several months as it moved north to south, rather than aggressively taking Rafah and the strategic Egypt-Gaza border area in the first phase along with Gaza City.

Despite impressive tactical achievements wherever IDF troops have operated, the military effort to crush Hamas as a coherent fighting force is unfinished, and it remains unclear that it ever will be completed — not to mention the years of clean-up operations afterward. Most brigades have long been pulled from Gaza.

Despite pulling up short of Rafah, Netanyahu has continually maintained that an IDF conquest of the southern Gaza city is vital to Israel’s war aims.

Back in February, Netanyahu said that Israel had only one month left to complete its upcoming operation in Rafah, before Ramadan.

A quiet Ramadan came and went, and Rafah remained in Hamas hands.

As the Muslim holy month ended, Netanyahu pledged again to go into Rafah and destroy the four battalions there. “This will happen. There is a date,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. It was one of four times since February he announced that he had authorized IDF operational plans for Rafah.

A very deep hole
The roots of the unsatisfactory military performance at the operation and strategic levels – which have “dug Israel into a very deep hole in the ground, which will take a long time to climb out of,” according to Hecht — go back well before October 7.

“The IDF could have come closer to the objective in seven months if it had not made a series of professional mistakes over the past 25 years that reduced its capability to conduct this campaign better,” Hecht argued.

During Israel’s early decades, the IDF’s operational concept rested on aggressive movement by its ground forces into enemy territory, quickly shifting the fight away from population centers to deliver decisive — and rapid — defeats to adversary forces.

That approach was stunningly effective during the era of Israel’s victories over conventional armies. Arab divisions were unequivocally devastated on the battlefield within days or weeks, and captured territory was the basis for peace talks with the leaders of the hostile coalition, which saw members drop out with each defeat at the hands of Israeli ground forces.

The quick ground maneuver concept began to crumble after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Though that conflict still ended with Israel’s ground forces notching a classic battlefield victory, the unexpected losses of IDF tanks at the hands of Egyptian and Syrian missiles, and an unprecedented lack of faith in leaders sending young men into battle, spurred Israelis to reconsider whether risking their lives in pitched battles was as necessary as they had been told.

The debate over the proper application of military force in Israel took place at the same time that US military thinkers were relying on their technological advantage to deal with the problem of the Soviet numerical advantage in Europe. Instead of meeting Russian armor head-on, they envisioned using precision missiles and improved intelligence capacity as the keys to devastating enemy forces. The stunning US victory over the large Iraqi army in 1991 underscored to Israel the potential of fighting smarter while risking fewer ground forces.

The strategy also obviated the need to capture and hold ground, seen increasingly by Israel as a liability in the wake of the First Palestinian Intifada and amid the long occupation of southern Lebanon by the IDF.

Given the belief that they would never again be asked to fight a conventional, high-intensity conflict, the ground forces were gradually reorganized and retrained to excel in low-intensity fights against guerrilla and terrorist forces. And if war against another army did break out, the air force, which received the lion’s share of innovative technology and budget increases, would be able to deliver decisive blows.

Israel’s military chiefs closed armored and artillery units, the source of the mobility and firepower needed in a high-intensity scrum for territory.

The infantry was also stripped down, with many of their medium and heavy capabilities — grenades, mortars, shoulder-fired missiles — retired or mothballed.

Netanyahu who led the country during this shift away from ground forces, was firmly in the camp that saw ground maneuver as a vulnerability, not an asset.

So after October 7, as Israeli planners scrambled to put together a campaign plan for conquering Gaza –something that had not existed for almost a decade — they found that they didn’t have sufficient forces.

Even if planners had concluded that taking Rafah at the same time as Gaza City was the way to go, years of neglecting the pieces needed for such a maneuver meant the army could not seriously consider such an undertaking.

“Today, the IDF is incapable of a simultaneous offensive in a number of sectors in Gaza,” Hecht explained.

They also recognized that the reservists, insufficiently trained, needed several weeks to regain the ability to fight in a full-scale ground offensive. Hence the weeks of idling outside of Gaza.

Ground forces learned lessons and improved quickly, but the majority of reserves were released just as they were overcoming the effects of years of neglect.

GPO)
“During those four months, the achievements were remarkable,” he continued, “but less than could have been achieved if the IDF had been fully capable and big enough to commence the offensive immediately.”

There have been other signs of unsatisfactory military leadership at the highest levels. IDF leaders supported a major operation against Hezbollah in the wake of the October 7 attacks, which would have left Israel dangerously overstretched.

Reservists participating in planning sessions in “the Pit,” the IDF’s underground operations center in the Kirya, have come out frustrated with what they call “a war without shins” – the Hebrew letter that connotes when an operation is set to start, comparable to H-Hour in the US military. The campaign against Hamas, they told The Times of Israel, is devoid of firm timetables.

A new type of war
The Swords of Iron war is longer than previous Israeli conflicts because it has a fundamentally different political goal than Israel’s many previous campaigns, according to military theorist Eran Ortal.

“For the first time, Israel is committed not only to the defeat of the enemy’s forces but also to the annihilation of its regime,” writes Ortal.

That type of campaign rests on replacing the enemy regime, in this case, Hamas.

But Israel’s government — in an attempt to keep the right flank of the coalition onboard — refused to begin installing a new regime while Hamas was underground. Doing so might have enhanced the pressure on Hamas, which would see an alternative to its rule taking hold at the same time that its military capabilities were being dismantled.

Instead, Hamas has remained without any serious challenger to its rule, and there is little reason for Gazans to do anything to resist the group as they return to the areas that the IDF has left — which today is almost all of Gaza’s population centers.

“Hamas is running the Strip now in the absence of another organization to run it,” an IDF official told Kan News, “and that is the heart of the problem.”

While the campaign has been stuck in place for months, Israel continues to pay the price of being at war while not really fighting one anymore, suffering international isolation and a low boil of hostilities on its northern border.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah might like to stop the exchange of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border, but he won’t do so until there is some sort of ceasefire in Gaza.

So, while some Gazans have begun returning to their homes, residents of Israel’s north are still refugees because the war in Gaza technically stretches on.

“Cornered now into a long total war against the Hamas regime, Israel can hardly sustain the effort needed and has no good solutions for the simultaneous threat from Lebanon,” Ortal argued.

And the longer the war in Gaza drags on, the longer Israel’s focus is on Hamas, and not on the even more serious threats of Hezbollah and Iran.

“What I have not heard from the IDF or the political echelon is a strategy to deal with Iran itself,” pointed out Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The White House hasn’t helped shorten the campaign either, even though it desperately wants it to end.

Trailing GOP challenger Donald Trump in polls, US President Joe Biden — who has drawn the ire of progressives and Muslim-Americans for his support of Israel — wants to move the public debate in the US beyond the war in Gaza by putting the conflict in the rear-view mirror.

But it has done whatever it can to block, or at least significantly delay, an Israeli operation into Rafah that would allow Israel to declare the war itself over, insisting on detailed humanitarian plans and repeatedly expressing opposition to such a move.

Instead, it is trying to effectively bring the war to an end through a ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. But, as the administration ramps up public pressure on Israel and calls for Israel to stay out of Rafah, officials consistently incentivize Hamas to hold out for a better deal. The longer Hamas waits, the more Israel’s relationships with allies fray.

Après moi, le déluge
An ark must be built before the flood. But when Hamas fighters poured across the border on October 7 in what it called Operation Al Aqsa Flood, the IDF wasn’t constructed for the war it had no choice but to fight.

Still, Israel has had enough time to recover and recreate itself for the complex campaign against Hamas. Yet its political and military leaders are taking their time, and avoiding the difficult decisions that people in their positions are expected to make.

Some will try to shift the blame to the Biden Administration. The White House has undoubtedly undermined the military threat to Hamas and done whatever it can to force a Rafah operation to be pushed off. But it is not Biden’s fault that the military campaign was designed to move slowly, and he would like nothing more than for Netanyahu to start replacing Hamas with a credible alternative on the ground.

Meanwhile, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 atrocities, will for the foreseeable future continue to control the fate of Israeli hostages, residents of the south and 60,000 evacuated residents of Israel’s north, as Israel’s leaders and media wait anxiously for his decisions. He does not appear to be in any rush.