2h ago (14:30 GMT) Israel’s war is ‘against the civilian population Hani Mahmoud Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Very tragic situations unfolded in the early hour of this morning as the Israeli military carried out air strikes, coupled with heavy artillery, on residential homes. It’s a pattern that’s been going on for the past month. These attacks occur without any prior warning. In the early hours of this morning, people were still inside these residential homes, and children were still in bed, still sleeping, when the heavy artillery and the bombs fell. Nine members of one family were killed right at the spot of the attacks, and several others were critically injured. There were three attacks separate attacks on refugee camps in what the Israeli military described as targeted killings, but children and women are making up the majority of the casualties arriving here at the hospital. The patterns of these attacks suggest that the Israeli military doesn’t have any military objective right now. When you see children and young adults brought to the hospital, shredded into pieces, the conclusion is that this war is against the civilian population.
Any type of two-state peace agreement will require Israel to give back most of this land in the West Bank that settlers are seizing. The continual seizure of land is not beneficial; nor is it wise policy by the Netanyahu administration to turn a blind eye to this issue -- effectively supporting the land seizure. In-depth BBC article. Israeli settlers are seizing Palestinian land under cover of war - they hope permanently https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624qr3mqrzo
Israeli-American’s body recovered in Gaza among six dead hostages By Ari Rabinovitch and Stephanie Kelly September 1, 2024 https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle...-in-gaza-sparking-furore-20240901-p5k6x1.html Jerusalem: Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza where they were apparently killed not long before Israeli troops reached them, the military said on Sunday. Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among them. “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing. Families and friends of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza display 107 pictures of hostages as they protest outside the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem.Credit: AP News of the discovery spurred renewed calls by Israelis demanding a hostage release deal and claims that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had abandoned the hostages. Fresh protests are likely. The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino had been found underground in the city of Rafah and returned to Israel, he said. “The heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces,” said President Isaac Herzog, whose post is largely ceremonial. “I embrace their families with all my heart, and apologise for failing to bring them home safely.” There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu, who is under pressure at home and abroad to reach a ceasefire deal that includes the release of remaining hostages. Hamas did not immediately comment on the accusations. US President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages seized on Oct. 7, said the six included Israeli American Goldberg-Polin. “I am devastated and outraged,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House. Days earlier, hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel, was rescued about a kilometre away, Israel’s Hagari said. After Alkadi was located, troops were told to be cautious because other hostages might be in the area, but there had been no precise information on their location, he said. The six recovered bodies were from about 250 hostages taken in Hamas’ killing spree through southern Israel on October 7 that sparked the war in Gaza. About 1,200 people were killed in the assault, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, at least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Goldberg-Polin, captured at a music festival near Gaza, appeared in a video released by Hamas in late April. “He had just turned 23. He planned to travel the world,” Biden said. His parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, “have been courageous, wise, and steadfast, even as they have endured the unimaginable,” he said. “They have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express,” the president said. Biden vowed that “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement: “I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world.” Harris said she would never waver on working to free all those held hostage in Gaza. Earlier, speaking to reporters in Delaware, Biden said he was “still optimistic” about a ceasefire deal to stop the conflict.“I think we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” he said. “It’s time this war ended.” Reuters.
Biden "outraged" because he's reaping what he sowed! What about 41,000 Palestinian dead and all of Gaza turned into wasteland because Biden looooves Israel so much that he'll continue supplying them ammo because "victim Israel needs to protect itself".
LMAO, talking bullshit and thinking idiot thoughts comes naturally for Biden. For starters Bibi and his right wing government wants war, duh. So do the settlers. So do the arms manufacturers. The Palestinians are gonna get all chummy now, yeah, sure.
The majority of Israelis are now against a two state solution -- leading to more articles like the one below. It does beg the question -- if the Palestinians including Hamas violently oppose a two-state solution then why should any Israeli support one -- and why is the world still pressuring for a two state solution. Time to nix 'Palestine': Terrorists aren't entitled to a state - opinion The one-dimensional, tunnel-vision demand for the two-state solution (2SS) is a recipe for continuing the conflict, not for resolving it. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-817022 For fifty years, many world leaders and politicians have been promoting the idea that “there’s no alternative to a Palestinian state, the ‘two-state-solution’” (2SS) – despite on-going terrorism and the fact that such a state will be run by terrorists who are committed to Israel’s destruction. Supporters of the 2SS argue that Arabs who call themselves Palestinians and support terrorism are entitled to a state, “self-determination,” and “ending the occupation,” which includes Judea, Shomron, Gaza and east Jerusalem – the “West Bank,” areas conquered by the IDF in the 1967 Six Day War. In other words, they advocate for Israel to withdraw to the cease-fire/armistice lines of 1949, arguing that this is required according to International Humanitarian Law, regardless of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist and to end terrorism. This is based on the Palestinian narrative of “The Nakba” (catastrophe) – their failure to annihilate Israel in 1948; “The Right of Return” for millions of Arab refugees to Israel; and their claim to all of what was called Palestine under the British Mandate and by the League of Nations. It is the basis of the PLO Covenant and the Hamas Charter – and is the foundation of Palestinian identity. Renouncing such beliefs is not only improbable; it is virtually impossible. Disputes over territory can be resolved, but not over ideology. Why, then, since nearly all Palestinians reject the 2SS, is it still relevant – and why is the claim constantly made that there is “no alternative?” THE ANSWER offered is an opposition to a one-state solution – “from the (Jordan) river to the sea” – both by Palestinian terrorists and by Israel. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 and the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (the “Disengagement”) were intended to deal with this problem. Instead, they made it worse. Nevertheless, Israeli leaders and the international community believed that making political and territorial concessions and offering economic incentives would result in peace, or at least an end to violence. That delusion ended on Oct 7, 2023. The problem, however, is a cognitive distortion: that “there is no alternative.” “No alternative” is a unique belief, and is politically only applied to the 2SS. There is rarely no alternative. Although it prevents any critical thinking, and examination of other possibilities, it remains a powerful and dominant mantra. The danger of believing this mantra is not only in its assumption that a Palestinian state is the only basis for discussion and negotiation, but that it legitimizes Palestinian terrorist organizations that would lead such a state. It is a subtle way of avoiding what Palestinianism means and ignoring threats to Israel’s existence, especially from Iran and its proxies. “No alternative,” therefore, is a form of absolutist thinking that requires abandoning reason and rationality, and avoiding questions of a fundamental premise. It denies the basis of all human endeavors: free and open inquiry. THE PURPOSE of the Oslo Accords, from Arafat’s perspective, was not peace, but to advance his agenda to destroy Israel. Receiving territorial, political and economic concessions, legitimacy, and recognition for the 2SS served his strategy. Many Israeli leaders ignored the risks. Then-prime minister Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David in July 2000 (22 years after PM Yitzhak Rabin signed the original peace accords there) to give Arafat almost everything that he wanted confirmed to the PLO leader that he was right: Israel was willing to surrender and withdraw to the 1949 Armistice lines. Despite increased terrorism, the UN and the international community prefer a quasi-Palestinian state and the 2SS. According to former US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, who was at Camp David and wrote two books about it, the reason that Arafat rejected Barak’s offers was because the conflict itself was his identity; it is the basis of “Palestinian national consciousness.” He initiated the Second Intifada two months later in September 2000 to prevent a resolution of the conflict (Intifada 2 lasted until February 2005, six months before the beginning of the Disengagement). The 2SS and terrorism are Arafat’s real legacy to ensure that the conflict will remain. Arafat was born in Cairo; he is therefore not a Palestinian. His identity, however, was shaped not only by the conflict, but by the narrative, especially The Nakba. Palestinianism began in 1948 with the war to annihilate Israel and its failure – it instead became the Jewish state’s War of Independence – and continued with the 1967 Six Day War. FOR PALESTINIANS, the nascent Jewish state was a “catastrophe,” and it continues to define their identity. For them, it is similar in a way to our connecting the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. We say “Never again”; for Palestinians it is “Don’t forget The Nakba,” “the refugees,” etc. For us, the Holocaust is part of our national identity; for Palestinians, The Nakba is the definition of what Palestinianism means. Instead of being treated as a war criminal, however, Arafat was honored as head of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. Even President George W. Bush, following the terrorist attack on 9/11, the war in Iraq and during the Second Intifada, declared his support for the 2SS. A symbol of hatred and violence, the solution was widely accepted as “the only alternative.” Support for this mantra has undermined efforts by Israel to resolve the conflict and led to the rise of Hamas, other Islamist jihadist groups, and Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah and the Houthis. Support for the 2SS, therefore, prevents any rational, meaningful consideration of other, far better proposals for both Palestinians and Israelis and the entire region. For example: having them move to other Arab and Muslim countries, developing tribal/clan-based socio-political entities, or giving them Israeli citizenship conditioned on allegiance – like Arabs who live in Israel. Although these options all have their own difficulties, they are possible alternatives. The one-dimensional, tunnel-vision demand for the 2SS is a recipe for continuing the conflict, not for resolving it.
As usual Hamas is murdering hostages again. What we know about the six hostages who Israel says were killed by Hamas in Gaza https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/01/middleeast/israel-gaza-wwk-hostages-killed-intl-hnk/index.html "Three of the six hostages whose bodies were recovered were expected to be released during the first phase of an eventual ceasefire agreement, two Israeli officials have told CNN." Stating the obvious - Hamas is not interested in a cease-fire or peace. ‘Hamas obstacle to deal,’ sources charge amid reports talks may collapse While Israel has been willing to go a long way to return the remaining hostages, negotiators say that the real obstacle is Hamas' demands, as protests in Israel continue to demand a deal. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-817158