Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday that Israel will invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah “with or without” a hostage deal with Hamas, a threat that could derail fragile ceasefire negotiations.
“The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu told representatives of hostage families, according to a statement from his office.
“We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory,” he added.
Rafah is packed with over 1 million Palestinian civilians, and any Israeli invasion would incur huge civilian casualties and further disrupt aid shipments into the Strip. The US has said it’s opposed to Israel launching the attack without a plan for the civilians. But an evacuation is not feasible since there’s no place for civilians to go, and the US doesn’t appear to be applying any real pressure since unconditional military aid continues to flow.
Netanyahu’s threat comes as Hamas is preparing a written response to Israel’s latest proposal in the Egyptian and Qatari-mediated ceasefire talks. Axios reported that the deal Israel put on the table includes a willingness to discuss a “restoration of sustainable calm” after an initial hostage and prisoner release, which is said to be a concession toward Hamas’s demand for a permanent ceasefire.
But Netanyahu’s comments make it clear that he will not agree to a permanent truce. During previous rounds of negotiations, Israeli officials involved in the talks told Haaretz that it seemed like Netanyahu was purposely sabotaging the chances of a deal.
According to media reports, the first phase of the Israeli proposal Hamas is reviewing would involve the release of as many as 33 Israeli hostages in exchange in exchange for a pause in Israeli military operations and the release of Palestinian prisoners. According to CNN, Israel helped Egypt craft the proposal but has not fully agreed to it.
In other news about the Rafah invasion a report from MEE of Israel “setting up a ‘complex network’ of checkpoints to prevent ‘military age’ men from fleeing Rafah assault, says (named, single source) senior western official”
MEE, https://bit.ly/3y33tYw
Offering little tangible deterrence the ICJ did not dismiss Nicaragua v. Germany but ruled 15:1 it found present circumstances insufficient to warrant provisional orders to stop Germany’s military sales to Israel. Nor did it rule in Nicaragua’s favor regarding UNHWA.
However by way of keeping Gaza in it’s thoughts the court noted it “remains deeply concerned about the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which they have been subjected”.
Guardian, https://bit.ly/3Wt8jrQ
Very disappointing that the Chinese, South African, Brazilian and Indian judges all joined the US and Germany in the 15 vote majority. BRICS didn’t stand solid against the genocide.
You’d be surprised with enough money, you can buy your way out of many difficult situations.
I wouldn’t be disappointed with China & SA, I don’t see changing 15:1 to 13:3 as accomplishing anything, it’s still not a close ruling, besides the 1 is Nicaragua 🙂
It was not just China and South Africa who refused to recognize Germany’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. The judges from India, Brazil, Lebanon, Mexico and Somalia also caved in to the US and Israel. So it could have been an 8-8 deadlock.
China is Israel’s leading import trade partner, South Africa continues to export raw diamonds to Israel like in the days of apartheid and India is Israel’s leading client for arms exports. Next to Russia, Israel is India’s largest supplier of weapons. Israel depends on importing 220,000 barrels of oil from Muslim and African countries that are OPEC+ members. The oil imports are essential for Israel’s war effort and its economy,
Except for the Houthis, no country in the world is really standing up for the Palestinians. Only the people of the world, not the governments, stand for Palestine.
It doesn’t seem you read the link or watched the 2+ hr ruling before deciding those countries “caved” to the US.
The ICJ is just another political tool as expected, other than words and nonbinding decisions there is nothing to see. Just another confirmation of the uselessness of the UN. It was a good idea many years ago, now it is almost useless.
People keep talking about “negotiations” like they think they’re being serious. In reality, they’re morons. There are no “negotiations” – just BS being passed back and forth because every party knows there’s a plan and the plan is being executed as they speak and the plan has ZERO to do with getting a ceasefire, or releasing hostages, or any of that crap.
All we Americans can hope for is an expanding solidarity in the expanded BRICS plus Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Bolivia and thr heart of Africa.
Freedom from military and police atrocities western and Israeli barbarism will happen sooner or later.
We hope.
BYE, BYE, ANY CEASEFIRE. MAD DOGS WITH AMERICANS…..!!!!!!
Bibi: Sign here before I kill you. Hamas: …Wait? Are you saying that you will kill me regardless? Bibi: Yes. Hamas: …Wow! Anybody believes this is a negotiation process? Bibi: IKR? The Americans do. They believe anything I tell them. I even convinced them genocide was a “peace process.”
Touche! Ole!
The US has said it’s opposed to Israel launching the attack without a plan for the civilians.
But if they do, oh well. It was Hamas that turned down the “generous” offer of getting eliminated.
United States of America : “You need a plan for the civilians.”
Apartheid State of Israel : “What part of ‘attack’ was unclear ?”
Netanyahu has no intention to stop anything as long as the $$$ are coming in, and the old demented Biden is as evil as Netanyahu is and supports him.
As I’ve been saying: this is PRE-PLANNED. Thanks to AK74 at MoA for these links:
Report unveils UK’s premediated role in Gaza genocide: Declassified UK
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/report-unveils-uk-s-premediated-role-in-gaza-genocide–decla
UK military support for Israel’s genocide was pre-planned
https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-military-support-for-israels-genocide-was-pre-planned/
Not specifically about Gaza, but explains the motivation for what Israel is doing to the people there none the less https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVSOKYRFNvM&t=335s
wow. This was one of the most arrogant and ignorant discussions I have ever watched.
These people would love an authoritarian theocracy to control people, especially women. And then they have the nerve to say that “pagan” societies want the will of the powerful over the weak, while pretending that hasnt been the way all societies have worked throughout the centuries (unfortunately), regardless of their religion.
what twisted and convoluted hubris and a waste of time with their nerve to talk about individual rights!! ha wow. its GOD’S WILL that a woman was raped and impregnated. Her will shouldnt be important these men say. hahaha
It doesn’t change the fact that the elites seem hell bent on murdering “inconvenient” people, and there are few people they find as “inconvenient” as Palestinians
That has always been the way, unfortunately. By adding religion to it (Christian, Judaism, or Islam, or any), you just add another reason to murder “inconvenient” people, especially if those inconvenient people don’t go along with your plans. Servants, slaves, women and populations that don’t worship your particular god should obey or be killed. That’s “God’s will,” they say.
“There is one alternative to Christianity, and that’s Paganism.”
Wow. Intensely stupid to start with; a false dichotomy on top of that. OH and afraid of “witchcraft”.
“Paganism has always been about the rejection of transcendent or absolute truth.”
What. An. Idiot.
Religious quasi-apologist who, I’m SURE, if I continued on with this trash video, will go ahead and assert that Absolute Morality and Truth come from god, and by odd coincidence, EXACTLY the Christian god he believes in as part of THE ONE TRUE CHRISTIANITY he managed to believe in out of the 20,000-44,000 different Christian sects in the world.
Jeez, Pally50 – a 36-hour loop of Rick Astley would have been a better use of our time than lending either of these dipwads our Views on YT.
You don’t have to be “anti-semitic” to be sickened and appalled by the brutal slaughter of 15,000 children in Gaza. You just have to be a decent human being.
And the brutal slaughter of children is not a “semitic” trait, ideal, attribute, or defining factor.
Biden et. al. seem to think opposing the IDF’s massacres is like disliking a skin color. Murder is NOT an intrinsic quality of the Israeli people or their religion(s).
SICK of this up-is-down wrong-is-right Orwellian dishonesty.
It is about time for Israel to suck the sweat off a dead man’s balls!
The US needs to get its head out of its Ass!
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64427
More than 200 Zionists attacked the anti-genocide protesters at UCLA, beating them and shouting “Second Nakba” to mock the Palestinian victims.
Max Blumenthal: “Imagine the media freakout and police repression if this was done to the hyper-protected class popularly known as ‘Jewish students’.”
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64426
Meanwhile, ever-lying Prime Minister Netanyahu once again uses the Big Lie Technique, of stating the exact opposite of reality. While he commits mass murder, he claims that those who object are horrific mass murderers. Exactly no sentence in his tweet has happened.
And of course, like Trump is a “Russian agent,” so Israel’s critics are Iran’s agents, according to the ADL.