The Israeli military announced on Sunday that it was withdrawing troops from parts of southern Gaza, a step Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said was being taken to prepare for an assault on Rafah, the southern city on the Egyptian border that’s packed with 1.5 million Palestinians.
“The withdrawal of the troops from Khan Yunis was carried out after Hamas ceased to function as a military organization in the city, the forces left to prepare for the operation in Rafah,” Gallant said.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the head of the Israeli military, said the withdrawal does not mean the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians would end anytime soon. “The war in Gaza continues, and we are far from stopping. Senior Hamas officials are still in hiding. We will get to them sooner or later,” he said.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the withdrawal means Palestinians can move freely in southern Gaza and in the city of Khan Younis. But the Israeli military is still keeping northern Gaza cut off from the south.
The White House said the Israeli announcement was likely about rest for the Israeli troops, who have been in southern Gaza for four months. “As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months and not necessarily, that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Israel’s plans to attack Rafah have been a source of tensions between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House, although there’s no sign the US has threatened to cut military support if Israel goes ahead with the invasion. A full-scale assault on Rafah would incur huge civilian casualties since most of the Palestinians are sheltering in tents on the street, and would disrupt aid shipments coming in from Egypt.
The UN needs to order members of the UN to send troops to enforce a ceasefire, protect aid convoys, protect aid workers. Stop the advance on Rafah. NOW!
Yes, and these need to be European troops, not troops from Asia and Africa that Israel can kill at a whim …
Keep NATO out!
Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, (BRICS) plus KSA, UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan from the Muslim countries.
Not going to happen. A UNSC Resolution without Chapter 7 language is unenforceable and one with that language would be vetoed by the US. A UNGA “United for Peace” Resolution would work, but who’s going to enforce it? It’s not militarily feasible and no country wants to get between Hamas and Israel especially with the US entirely supporting Israel.
Only the Axis of Resistance can stop this and they’re waiting for the US to run out of bombs like the Russians drained NATO in Ukraine. That could take several more months at least. Only if Israel directly invades Lebanon will Hezbollah move sooner.
The UN can’t order members to do squat.
So they withdraw from Khan Younis, and then proceeded to shell it. Sounds more like they just didn’t want too many (more) casualties from friendly fire.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the withdrawal means Palestinians can move freely in southern Gaza and in the city of Khan Younis.
I’m betting that “freely” has a different meaning than what one normally might consider freely to mean.
Free to die if you stay where you are, and free to die if you move somewhere else.
“Freedom means nothing left to lose.”
-Kris Kristofferson
They may freely return to the rubble that was once their apartment buildings. They may freely drink the brackish ground water or eat what grass or dirt may be found.
Yes,it is terrible-blame Hamas.
Everyone blames you. You were too powerful, made an enormous blunder, and you’re not powerful enough to repair the damage you’ve made to your reputation.
I just saw a couple of maps that indicate that Israel is only occupying a narrow corridor in the center of the Strip (and maybe a narrow strip along the occupation fence around the devastated territory).
I also watched credible videos exposing the daring actions of “the resistance” (Hizbolla, Iraqi guerrillas and Yemen-Sana’a) only in the last 24 hrs that are devastating for Israel and allies. And also another video of a car driven by some sort of Zio-Nazi family ramming and injuring several israelis protesting against Netanyahu.
And Iran haven’t retaliated yet…
My impression is that Israel is very much finished: they’re a tiny colony in the middle of hostile territory, which nowadays is pretty much all the World anyhow. It looks totally like the last days of French Algeria… but with a risk of nuclear escalation.
It just all comes down to US providing support.
True to a large extent but is finally US support faltering as it seems after the attack on the Iranian embassy or is it all farce and pretense? Has been Blinken actually coercing Israel into “behaving” or is just smoke and mirrors? Has the USA-UK-Israel bloc actually been defeated by “The Resistance” as some claim?
Biden is nothing but smoke and mirrors. The Axis of Resistance is taking a long-term attrition strategy expecting the US will run out of bombs to supply to Israel. Eventually Israel will have to invade Lebanon and that’s when the Axis will move.
Hamas isn’t even remotely finished as you’ve seen. They’re still getting arms and ammunition and not running out of anything. They’re repurposing the very bombs Israel drops on them (the duds that fail to explode and the stuff they capture.) Israel is taking horrific losses while Hamas retains 90% intact and its tunnel network is impregnable even to 2,000 lb bombs the US gives Israel (most of those are probably being held back by Israel for Lebanon anyway.)
I didn’t mention Biden (who is a literal zombie) but the real de facto President, Mr. Blinken.
Hamas is alive an kicking (I’d much rather prefer the PFLP but Hamas are the Palestinian people’s choice nowadays, as far as we know at least, as there has not been any election in almost two decades), both politically and militarily (anyway it’s not just Hamas manning the Palestinian Resistance, although they’re the strongest force). Even if Israel would be accurate when they say that they killed 9000 resisters (which is false), Hamas alone had 40,000 troops at the beginning of the brutal siege, so they should still have at least 31,000 alive and ready to act.
But the problem Israel and the USA are facing is much bigger than Hamas and all the conceivable Palestinian Resistance together: it is Iran and its allies in the region, it is the possibility of massive conventional missile barrages that could flatten tiny Israel or at least all its military-political capabilities in few hours, that could totally disrupt the Persian Gulf oil trade easily and that could put a massive army at the gates of Jerusalem in a day or two (the scatter of US bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan is no barrier, nobody else will face the Iranian Army). And never mind Hizbollah and the Iraqi militias (which just bombed key sites in Israel), nor the key-est issue, which is Yemen-Ansarullah, which has been on total rampage these days and has effectively destroyed the Israeli and Anglosaxon trade.
And never mind that China and Russia recently signaled with military drills that Iran is out-of-bounds for the USA.
We’ll see what happens but I’m under the impression that the USA is getting tired of unruly Israel, its endless genocidal arrogance and its military inefficiency and will dump them.
I agree with everything except the Iranian Army being anywhere near Israel. They don’t have the logistical capability to project power beyond their borders except maybe in immediate neighboring countries like Iraq. They are going to have to rely on Hezbollah, their militias in Syria and the like – and their missile arsenal (although they only have about 500-750 that can hit Israel – the rest will have to be used on US bases in the region.)
But that will be enough. Hezbollah alone can destroy much of Israel’s military infrastructure and probably take northern Israel entirely, as Scott Ritter has said.
And there’s always the slight chance that once he sees which way the wind is blowing, Erdogan might commit Turkey’s army which also alone is enough to defeat Israel.
Once Hezbollah has inflicted enough damage on Israel that the other countries see Israel vulnerable, Egypt, Jordan and Syria might be tempted to pile on.
There remains the risk of Israel’s nukes, however. I believe Russia can mitigate that risk somewhat, but not necessarily completely.
It’s just 500 km through very friendly territory (not just Iraqis but also Jordanians and practically everyone in the region backs the Iranians and allies now, as they’re the only ones standing for justice, while the other Muslim rulers do nothing or worse). They just need to take over a handful of indefensible US bases that the USA will not defend (because it can’t). In “Murican”: 300 miles!!! Without checkpoints, a car does that in mere few hours, in a war context (but without any real barriers in between) an army can do that in a couple of days.
But that would be the aftermath of the initial massive mutual bombing, which would have left Iran maybe injured but Israel totally destroyed in any realistic capability.
Erdogan has been cooperating with Israel since 2011: the proxy invasion of Syria, the invention of DAESH (ISIS), etc. was all done under US-Israeli-Turkish direction (plus Saudis, Jordanians and what-not at least at the beginning). Erdogan’s mafia has been selling Kurdish oil to Israel barely undercover, have cooperated in terms of Morocco against West Sahara very intensely, have been best pals in the other genocide of 2023, the one in Artsakh (Upper Karabakh) against Armenians, etc. Erdogan barks for PR reasons but does not bite: he’s a traitor to his own proclaimed cause.
The question of Israeli nukes is definitely a most serious issue but we really don’t know if and how many nuclear warheads the Zionist Regime has, much less how can it actually deliver them. Considering what we see in Britain, where the only delivery means are the Trident submarines, which are so obsolete that are in the drydock most of the time, my guess is that Israel can only deliver with airplanes, which are slow and risky to use. I’m not even considering that dissuassory capability, much as I don’t consider the British nuclear threat a real issue in other potential scenarios such as, say, a Spanish overnight takeover of Gibraltar (not gonna happen… yet, worry not).
Egypt is US controlled.
When Iran fires enough missiles at Israel and causes enough casualties,a dozen Iranian cities will be slagged.
I don’t think so. First, I’m sure that the Iranian strike will be devastating but “surgical” and not targetted at civilians but military or political objectives rather. Secondly, Israel is very scared right now, literally braced for the Iranian counterattack, which Tehran is taking their time to enact. Thirdly, the USA, which know exactly how that may be (remember Soleimani’s murder by Trump and how a US military base was devastated in the response and that the USA didn’t dare to escalate under discreet but firm threat by China and Russia) and which is again rightfully scared of nuclear war escalation, won’t just do anything about all that but may well dump Israel altogether if the Zionist entity dares to escalate on their own. This is too big for the petty racist colony to be allowed to drag all the US Empire into it.
If that happens, then Israel will be utterly destroyed in a single day: Iran doesn’t need nukes for that, because it has massive conventional missile and drone power and Israel is absolutely tiny and vulnerable.
There is this widespread misconception in the West about their own capabilities, about them always winning. Reality says otherwise: Afghanistan, Ukraine, West Africa and now also Palestine and the Red Sea route are clear examples of US Empire’s decline and military powerlessness. It’s, much as Che Guevara dreamed of, “one, a thousand Vietnams”, just that it’s not the communists doing it anymore but rather right-wing nationalist forces, who have managed to get the high moral ground one way or another.
Nobody believed Israel would survive in 1948-HAHAHA! Hezbollah will serve to ruin Lebanon,Iraqi terrorists ruined Iraq.
Israel only survived then because of Stalin’s support. Remember that they got all their weapons via Czechoslovakia. That’s one of the worst crimes of Stalinism.
Those 3 brigades of IDF regulars were throughly mauled in the battles of Khan Yunis. After 4 months of continuous combat, evidence in the last week was that these units were unable to perform the most basic defensive actions. They were making noob mistakes over and over again.
It’s tragic that the Likud sends these poorly trained, horribly led soldiers into battle.
Only in your view.
Could it actually be that Biden grew a spine and BB actually caved under this threatened cut-off?
No, it could not …
Sounds more like Biden caved. On Friday, according to Biden, Israel had already done what he
toldasked them to do on Thursday. I don’t see how it could be possible for Biden to already determine that Israel had implemented “a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers” in ONE day. You would think he’d at least wait a few more days to give it a sense of believability.Israel didn’t achieve its goals in destroying Hamas in Khan Yunis… Now, they think the entire Hamas is cornered in Rafah and they can finally eliminate them by invading Rafah…! Not knowing that any Hamas members and hostages are already on the move out of Rafah…!
Indeed, “Israel’s plans to attack Rafah have been a source of tensions between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House, although there’s no sign the US has threatened to cut military support if Israel goes ahead with the invasion.“
Of course, once a zionist, always a zionist: For Joe Biden, it’s par for the course!
He said on Friday “that he has no plans to alter his policy of full-throated support for the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza“, despite the killings of an American citizen and of a Canadian citizen and five other workers for the World Central Kitchen.
Biden has no decency and morals.
Quick! Someone dial God’s toll-free number and tell him very urgently, no one cares.
Once must hope for some kind of divine intervention since the IDF and the Israeli government are utter fiends who care nothing about the rule of law or humanity.
Yes,and Hamas just sacrificed 30,000 of their own people,after committing atrocities in Israel. fiendish. Cutting the fingers off of live people ,as Hamas did,sounds fiendish to me,as does stabbing people while they rape them.
” after Hamas ceased to function as a military organization in the city”
HAHAHAHAHA! Supposedly they cleared northern Gaza and just the other day there were reports that Israel had to pull its troops out of there because of “fierce fighting”.
Israel hasn’t come close to defeating Hamas. Estimates are ten percent or so of Hamas fighters have been killed or captured. Israel has done literally nothing about the tunnel network which is impregnable to its bombing.
Excellent piece by M.K. Bhadrakumar:
Iran’s retaliation against Israel will be a defining moment for the US
https://www.indianpunchline.com/irans-retaliation-against-israel-will-be-a-defining-moment-for-the-us/
Money quote:
Yemen ‘promises Iran 400,000 troops’ in event of regional war
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/04/07/yemen-promises-iran-400000-troops-in-event-of-regional-war/
That’s a tidy number – although I’m not sure they have the logistics to move any of them out of Yemen. Also, I’m unable to confirm this report by other sources. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Yemen could get that many people ticked off at Israel enough to join their army. Reportedly they had 180-200,000 men previously and the report says another 200,000+ have joined.
So are the Russians,er Egyptians coming in from the opposite direction?
So the Israeli Armed Thugs need rest, dropping bombs is really hard work. They are not going into Rafa for political reasons, they are waiting for Hamas to attack, so they can go in claiming they are defending themselves. With so many people calling the Israelis War Criminals, they need to create the look of them being victims and the need to protect themselves. If the Nations really cared about Humanity, they would threaten Israel with their destruction, if they don’t stop their Genocide and Return Palestinian Lands.
There is a plan on where to send Israel…
Straight to HELL!
And “I love it when a plan comes together”.
This has to stop.
This is really simple: The Israelis are out to murder as many Arabs as possible. Men, women, children, doesn’t matter.
The Israelis have become a disease.
Very important Alastair Crooke article – a must-read.
Brutal, chaotic war – norms, conventions and laws of conduct are being erased
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/04/08/brutal-chaotic-war-norms-conventions-and-laws-of-conduct-are-being-erased/
Money quote: