#Khalil al-Hayya

[vyorei]

[arrahmahcom]

Khalil Al-Hayya: Muhammad Al-Deif sedang Menertawakan Kebohongan Kalian

GAZA (Arrahmah.id) – Khalil Al-Hayya – Wakil Ketua Gerakan Perlawanan Islam (Hamas) di Jalur Gaza – membantah pemberitaan kalangan ‘Israel’ soal terbunuhnya komandan Brigade Syahid al-Qassam, Muhammad al-Deif dalam serangan yang terjadi pada Sabtu (13/7/2024), di kawasan Al-Mawasi, selatan Jalur Gaza, menegaskan bahwa Perdana Menteri ‘Israel’ Benjamin Netanyahu mengharapkan deklarasi kemenangan…

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Reuters’ Ethics and Standards editor told HonestReporting on Tuesday that the wire service “disputes” our “claim” that its journalists had “decorate[d] their office with terror symbols.”

This despite photo evidence we exposed last week showing scarves with terror groups insignias decorating what used to be Reuters office in Gaza in 2013:

The man in the photo is Reuters current Head of Visuals for Gaza, Suhaib Jadallah Salem. The photo still appears on his Facebook page.

Like the Nazi Swastika, the emblems on the scarves are of genocidal groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — that call for the killing of Jews/Israelis (like some of Suhaib’s colleagues in Reuters).

There are only two bad explanations to Reuters’ disturbing response: ” Either it doesn’t view these proscribed terror groups as such, or it is denying indisputable evidence.

The rest of Reuters Ethics and Standards editor Brian Moss’s official response did not address our exposure of its journalists in Gaza receiving awards from senior Hamas officials.

Instead, it said: “On the basis of a close review by the Reuters Ethics and Standards department, we dispute the distorted evidence and insinuations of bias in the HonestReporting September 5th article. We stand by our coverage of Gaza and our team, who operate within the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles…Further, we dispute any claim that our journalists received ‘de-facto bribes from terrorists.'”

But here are the facts, which HonestReporting stands behind:

Our review of Palestinian media revealed that since 2015, the proscribed terror group has hosted annual ceremonies to honor Gazan journalists who had won prestigious international awards, including photographers from Reuters.

This cozy relationship between Gaza’s terror groups and the journalists tasked with covering them objectively is ethically flawed. It exposes the disturbing entanglement between terrorists and the media, shaping a distorted global narrative about Gaza.

Honored by Terrorists

In 2017, Hamas held a commendation event for international award-winning journalists in Gaza, where it honored Reuters photographer Suhaib Jadallah Salem — the agency’s current head of visuals for Gaza (who was photographed in Reuters office in front of the terror groups’ scarves.)

One of the photos from the event shows Suhaib’s brother Mohammed Jadallah Salem, a Reuters photographer who recently won the Pulitzer prize and the World Press Photo award, receiving Suhaib’s commendation plaque on his behalf. Two senior Hamas officials are granting the plaque: Khalil al-Hayya and Mushir al-Masri:

Al-Hayya has publicly called for a fight against Israel as “the head of the serpent,” and al-Masri has vowed to “uproot The Zionists With Our Axes, Knives, Guns.”

Receiving commendation from such terrorists is a mark of Cain. It should get any journalist disciplined by any respectable media outlet.

Yet Reuters journalists — knowing perhaps that their bosses won’t find out or even care — had no qualms getting into bed with Hamas. Another photo from the event shows other Reuters journalists around a table not too far from al-Hayya: Reuters Senior Gaza correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi is sitting near Suhaib’s brother Mohammed and photographer Ashraf Amra (who was also honored at the event and exposed by HonestReporting for endorsing infiltration into Israel on October 7). Beside them is Belal Jadallah, who headed the allegedly “independent” Gaza Press House:

Suhaib himself attended a separate Hamas commendation event for journalists later in 2017. This time, he was honored for performing the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca:

Suhaib received the commendation from al-Masri and Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum (who have often been interviewed by Reuters), along with the movement’s media officials.

It’s worth noting that four of the Jadallah brothers work for Reuters, in Gaza and Dubai. And the links of the Jadallah family to Hamas go back years. One of the brothers of Suhaib and Mohammed, Sallah, was among the terrorists who kidnapped and killed Israeli soldier Nahshon Waxman in 1994.

The mastermind behind that operation was Moahmmed Deif, who was recently eliminated by Israel. As Hamas’ military chief, Deif was also one of the masterminds behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel.

If Suhaib and Mohammed were professional journalists, such background wouldn’t necessarily matter. But if they have been hosted and honored by Hamas, it’s alarming.

Unethical Nexus

Top news editors probably know it’s impossible to be a journalist in Gaza without links to Hamas, which controls the information flow. In other words, professional journalism in Gaza is impossible, and news outlets should admit it to their audience.

But being hosted by Hamas, receiving its commendations, and displaying terror groups’ insignias isn’t a case of journalists even trying to be professional. This is an agenda-driven, cooperative, symbiotic, reciprocal, and personal nexus that benefits each side.

A Hamas statement from one of the commendation events said it best:

The media office of Hamas organizes this annual event to honor creative journalists for the fourth year in a row, in appreciation of their efforts in serving the Palestinian cause.

Journalists who violate the agency’s code of ethics by receiving de-facto bribes (or at least benefits) from terrorists to “serve the Palestinian cause,” and decorate their office with terror symbols, are not deserving of international praise or the defense of the Reuters Ethics and Standards department.

[daniel-nerd]

while everyone is talking about the bullet that scratched trump, israel is yet again committing some of its most disgusting crimes in weeks, if not months.

(the video showcasing the medical teams trying to rescue civilians and save lives, when another airstrike hit, directly where the ambulances gathered.)

we live in a world where after idf warplanes dropped hundreds of kilograms worth of tnt, on a self designated ‘humanitarian zone’ that they demanded civilians to evacuate to, many of the medical teams who rushed there to try and save as many human lives as possible, were rescued by civilians who went to them to either help or get medical treatment, because the so called israeli ‘defense’ force targeted specifically the ambulances in another bombing shortly after, specifically to prevent them from saving lives. killing over 100 civilians, injuring hundreds more. 8 confirmed us made jdam bombs dropped in total, with estimation at a minimum of half a ton(around 1 thousand pounds) worth of tnt.

and the excuse? israel claim mohammed deif(the head of hamas’ military wing) was hiding between these civilians, even through last known appearance of him was most likely around 2018, and the one before that was in the year 2000, also there are hundreds if not thousands of underground tunnels that israel know they can’t get into, and admit they have no idea where most of them are.

hamas in response STOPPED ALL HOSTAGES NEGOTIATIONS, khalil al-hayya, (deputy chief of hamas’s political bureau) stated “we affirm that the claims of the occupation and netanyahu are false. we say to netanyahu that mohammed deif is listening to you now and mocking your false and empty statements. the claim of targeting leaders here and there is a ridiculous justification for killing women and children, and every palestinian, whether in gaza, the west bank, or anywhere else. this is an attempt by the criminal army to market its crimes against our people” he also described the attack as an attempt by the idf “to restore its dignity” after its defeat in the face of “resistance”

netanyahu admits israel have no idea if deif is alive or not and promised to go after all hamas leaders, which the idf later retracted the statement, after hamas alleged deif to be alive and well.

cheif of lebanon’s hezbollah declared this massacre will not go unpunished “the zionist enemy commits a massacre in al-mawaski, khan younis, justifying it by claiming they aimed to target hamas leaders … we will emerge victorious from the battle of the al-aqsa flood, heads held high…”

meanwhile hamas is successfully targeting and assassinating israeli combatants all over gaza.

this confirms that netanyahu’s claims about “cracks and weaknesses within hamas forces” was nothing but empty lies

the vast majority of israelis stopped believing in the ridiculous claims and blatant lies of the israeli government and the idf, with protests against the war, for hostage deal of everyone for everyone, and for the overthrow of netanyahu’s regime, such numbers of protests and protestors haven’t been seen since the last elections, which marked the very controversial 5th election in 4 years in israel.

lastly, the us started its sanctions against more terrorist settlers, known terrorist who organized the attacks against humanitarian trucks trying to bring food to gaza, the same attacks that standing together’s humanitarian guards stopped by physically protecting the trucks throughout their entire trip, saving as much vandalized food, and loading the saved food onto the next humanitarian trucks.

on an unrelated note: i’ve tried a new formatting, i hope y’all like it. i’m (hopefully) back at reporting about the stuff you might won’t hear in the mainstream news, showcasing the war from the point of view of israeli citizens.

[adropofhumanity]

Israeli forces murderered at least 90 civilians and injured hundreds in a series of massive airstrikes on the Al-Mawasi region on the southern Gaza coast on 13 July.

Israel claimed to have been targeting top Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Deif and his deputy Rafi' Salameh during this massacre.

Not only did Deputy Head of Hamas in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya deny that he was assassinated, but Israel itself retracted its statements that Deif had been injured, and hours later, in his extremely inflammatory press conference, Benjamin Netanyahu also announced there was absolutely no confirmation of the Qassam leader's assassination.

"We tell Netanyahu that Mohammed Deif is listening to you now and laughing at your empty statements," said Hayya, who described Netanuahu's conference in its entirety as "miserable."

Following the massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stomped on mediators' efforts to reach an agreement and once again said that Israel will not end the war on Gaza until "we obtain all the goals of the war, and not one moment before." He also claimed that he has not deviated from the proposal backed by US President Joe Biden.

Following the massacre, AFP reported, citing an unnamed Hamas official, that Hamas had pulled out of ceasefire talks.

However, this was denied by Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq on Sunday.

Hayya also clarified the previous evening that Hamas will not give Netanyahu what he wants by pulling out of talks, but that the ball remains in his court.

[jloisse]

🔴Le vice-président du Hamas à Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya.

[satellitebroadcast]

Hamas says its negotiation team, led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, met Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel to discuss the latest developments in Gaza. A current ceasefire proposal remains on the table with Hamas saying it’s ready to hand over Israeli captives, but Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu rejecting the terms. Sultan Barakat, a professor at Qatar’s Hamid Bin Khalifa University, says “the Israelis have created further facts on the ground” when it comes to the truce deal that Hamas accepted in July after it was endorsed by the UN Security Council. Israel has created a “corridor that splits Gaza in two and it will never leave that”, Barakat told Al Jazeera, a fact Hamas cannot agree to in any agreement. “They [the Israelis] use the excuse of security, but they really use it to make the lives of Palestinians even more difficult,” he added.

[mariacallous]

Qatar, the small emirate on the Persian Gulf, has long enjoyed unmatched influence over Hamas, the ruling power in Gaza. It is now threatening to withdraw its services as a mediator between Hamas and Israel unless Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ceases what Doha considers to be a smear campaign against it. The fate of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza could now hang in the balance of this new diplomatic dispute.

Last week, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that the mediation process had been abused for “narrow political interests,” and that Qatar will make “the appropriate decision at the right time.” It was a message intended for Netanyahu, according to an Arab official who spoke to Foreign Policy.

Qatari officials reportedly believe that Netanyahu is deliberately delaying a possible release of hostages to prolong the war and stay in power. By threatening to walk away from the negotiations, they believe they can pressure Netanyahu into clarifying whether negotiating a hostage release is a priority for him at all. “We only negotiate when both sides want us to,” said a Qatari official who spoke to Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity considering the sensitivity of the matter.

Netanyahu knows Qatar is necessary to the negotiations owing to the leverage that it gained over Hamas in the years prior to the current war. Qatar sent $1.3 billion in aid to Gaza between 2012 and 2021, at a time when Israel had otherwise largely cut off the territory, and it lent Hamas international credibility by giving its representatives airtime on Al Jazeera.

Qatar is well aware of its unique diplomatic position and is enjoying the limelight on the global stage. And yet there have been valid questions around Qatar’s intentions. There is strong suspicion in Israel and in parts of the U.S. government that it is biased in Hamas’s favor and pushing for its agenda. Doha, they say, could more effectively compel Hamas if it threatened those of its leaders who have taken residence in Qatar with expulsion, or with extradition to a country that lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Qatar started to host Hamas in 2012 after the group ran afoul of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and claims to have opened its doors at the behest of then-U.S. President Barack Obama. But Foreign Policy has learned from the aforementioned Arab official who is aware of the negotiations that despite bipartisan pressure from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Qatar has not yet asked Hamas to relocate.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer accused Qatar of blocking negotiations, essentially abusing its role as a mediator. He was the fifth lawmaker to urge Congress to scrap Qatar’s status as a major non-NATO ally granted to the Arab nation in 2022 for supporting evacuations from Afghanistan. Any such demotion would not only be a global embarrassment for Qatar but would relegate it below Egypt and other competitors in the neighborhood who also hold the same designation.

“Qatar needs to make it clear to Hamas that there will be repercussions,” Hoyer said in a statement. Earlier this month, Republican Sens. Ted Budd, Joni Ernst, and Rick Scott introduced a bill that would require the United States to conduct a review to “terminate the designation” if Qatar didn’t expel or extradite Hamas’s leadership, “including Ismail Haniyeh, Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashal,” its biggest leaders.

Orly Gilboa—the mother of 19-year-old Daniella Gilboa, who has been held hostage by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023—said that the United States’ pressure on Qatar could work. “Qatar supports Hamas, but they want good relations with the U.S., so they will do what the U.S. wants them to do,” she told Foreign Policy over Zoom.

But some U.S. lawmakers said the move to scrap the status was premature and unwarranted. That has encouraged Doha to stay the course. But the Arab official believes that those who asked to strip Qatar of the designation are perhaps pro-Netanyahu lawmakers and do not speak for the Oval Office.

Budd’s legislation argues that if Hamas is refusing “reasonable” negotiations, then there is no reason for Qatar to continue hosting Hamas’s political office or members, parroting the viewpoint of many in Israel’s security community. But “reasonable” is being defined differently by the various parties concerned.

While Israel expects Qatar to convince Hamas to release hostages and then intends to resume the war to eliminate the group entirely from Gaza, Qatar finds merit in Hamas’s demand of a permanent cease-fire. This is the crux of the disagreement between Qatar and Israel.

“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request,” said an Arab official familiar with the negotiations. “If they release all hostages, they want an end to the war.”

However, the Israeli security community suspects that’s not all Hamas wants. They argue it could have achieved an end to the war had it agreed to disarm and leave Gaza. Israelis fear that Hamas wants to return to Gaza, victorious, and carry out more attacks that match the cruelty of Oct. 7.

“We can’t hand Hamas a victory,” said Eran Lerman, a former Israeli deputy national security advisor. “After what they have done, we refuse to live with Hamas as our neighbors. And it’s not just Netanyahu, but there is wide support for the policy to eradicate Hamas.” Israel is ready to offer only a temporary truce until Hamas has been vanquished.

Doha makes the case that since the war has limited its ability to send aid to Gaza, it simply doesn’t have the kind of leverage it once did over Hamas’s leaders holding the hostages inside Gaza.

“Sinwar will rather die inside Gaza than agree to a deal to leave,” said an Arab official aware of the negotiations, referring to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader within Gaza who was behind the Oct. 7 attack. “This is the mistake—this is what Israelis are not understanding.”

He said that threatening to kick out Hamas’s political leaders from Qatar will not bring the desired pressure on Hamas. Sinwar, who is making the final decisions about the hostage negotiations, doesn’t care about his group’s political representatives or where they live, “whether in Qatar, Turkey, Oman, or Iran.”

Israel also doesn’t care where Hamas’s leaders reside and has already declared that it will hunt them down wherever they may choose to hide. But Israeli leaders say that in the short term, they are focused on bringing back the hostages and eliminating Hamas.

Lerman said that Egypt has already been partly involved in negotiations, noting that it could become a single point of communication with Hamas if Qatar doesn’t succeed in mediating the release of the hostages in exchange for a temporary truce not a permanent cease-fire. “It’s not like we won’t be left with a channel of communication,” he said. “If Qatar cannot live up to its claim, that it has leverage over Hamas, then what’s the point?”

Some in the Israeli security community believe that once the long-expected Rafah operation has been successfully carried out and all of Gaza brought under Israeli occupation, Hamas’s leaders and members would be in for a run for their lives and more inclined to accept a deal on Israeli terms.

“Hamas will feel a very different kind of threat than they feel now—that will change their minds,” Lerman said.

It’s a tricky gamble. If Qatar walks out, Israel risks losing a mediator with more influence over Hamas than any other Arab state, and if Doha fails in ensuring safe hostage release, it may damage its ties with the United States. Thus far, neither side is willing to concede, and negotiations will likely go down the wire, further procrastinating the homecoming of the more than 130 Israelis believed to remain in Gaza.

Families of hostages have said that they want their loved ones released “despite the difficult price,” but they also don’t want Hamas to live next door, preferably.

“I prefer if there is a solution,” Gilboa said. “Maybe Hamas’s leaders can move to Qatar and live there.”

[notyourtoday]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Middle East Eye (@middleeasteye)

Caption on post -

Israeli strikes on a camp in Gaza's Khan Younis have killed at least 90 Palestinians, half of whom were women and children, and wounded 300, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Hamas stated that the bombardment caused a "massacre" in tents housing displaced people in the Mawasi district of Khan Younis, an area that Israel had reportedly designated a safe Zone.

The lsraeli army claimed that the target of the strikes was Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's military wing. lsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his government has "no certainty" that Mohammed Deif was killed in the strike.

Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, responded by reiterating that lsrael's claims about targeting Deif are false and that he is alive and well.

According to medical authorities in Gaza, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October.

By @middleeasteye on Instagram.

Link to post.

[vyorei]

[warningsine]

BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas’ top political leader was killed Wednesday by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risked escalating into an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will exact a very heavy price from any aggression against us on any front” but did not mention the killing. “There are challenging days ahead,” he added.

Israel had pledged to kill Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The assassination was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile, intertwined conflicts because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates. The U.S. and other nations scrambled to prevent a wider, deadlier conflict.

In a statement on his official website, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said revenge was “our duty” and that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home.”

Bitter regional rivals, Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.

Haniyeh’s killing also could prompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which U.S. mediators had said were making progress.

And it could inflame already rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which international diplomats were trying to contain after a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

Israel carried out a rare strike Tuesday evening in the Lebanese capital that it said killed a top Hezbollah commander allegedly behind the rocket strike. Hezbollah, which denied any role in the Golan strike, confirmed the death of Fouad Shukur on Wednesday, saying he was in the building that was hit. The strike also killed three women and two children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said there was “no sign that an escalation is imminent” in the Middle East and that a cease-fire agreement for Gaza was still possible. He also said the U.S. could not independently confirm reports of what occurred in Tehran. A key question is whether Israel told the U.S., its top ally, ahead of time.

Asked about Haniyeh’s killing, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “This is something we were not aware of or involved in.” Speaking to Channel News Asia, Blinken said he would not speculate about the impact on cease-fire efforts.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the strikes with Iran and Israel each pressing the council to condemn the other. But the U.N.’s most powerful body issued no collective message after the meeting. The council’s 15 members variously warned that the Middle East was at a precarious point, worried about potential escalation, called for restraint and diplomacy, and pointed fingers along longstanding fault lines.

Khalil al-Hayya, a powerful figure within Hamas who was close to Haniyeh, told journalists in Iran that whoever replaces Haniyeh will “follow the same vision” regarding negotiations to end the war — and continue in the same policy of resistance against Israel.

Hamas’ main consultative body was expected to meet soon, likely after Haniyeh’s funeral Friday in Qatar, to name a successor. A Hamas statement said a funeral service will be held in Tehran on Thursday, with Muslim funeral prayers on Friday in Doha followed by his burial in Lusail, Qatar’s second largest city.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he still had hopes for a diplomatic solution on the Israeli-Lebanon border. “I don’t think that war is inevitable,” he said. “I think there’s always room and opportunity for diplomacy, and I’d like to see parties pursue those opportunities.”

But international diplomats trying to defuse tensions were alarmed. One Western diplomat, whose country has worked to prevent an Israeli-Hezbollah escalation, said the strikes in Beirut and Tehran have “almost killed” hopes for a Gaza cease-fire and could push the Middle East into a “devastating regional war.” The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation.

Israel often refrains from commenting on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency or strikes on other countries.

In a statement by his office, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel doesn’t want war after its strike on the Hezbollah commander in Beirut, “but we are preparing for all possibilities.” He did not mention the Haniyeh killing, and a U.S.-provided summary of his call with Austin did not mention it.

The killing of Haniyeh abroad comes as Israel has not had a clear success in killing Hamas’ top leadership in Gaza, who are believed to be primarily responsible for planning the Oct. 7 attack.

Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. Israel has targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon and Syria during the war, but going after Haniyeh in Iran was vastly more sensitive. Israel has operated there in the past: It is suspected of running a yearslong assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2020, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran.

During Haniyeh’s last hours in Iran, a close ally of Hamas, he was smiling and clapping at the inauguration ceremony of the new President Masoud Pezeshkian. Associated Press photos showed him seated alongside leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group and Hezbollah, and Iranian media showed him and Pezeshkian hugging. Haniyeh had met earlier with Khamenei.

Hours later, the strike hit a residence Haniyeh uses in Tehran, killing him, Hamas said. One of his bodyguards was killed, Iranian officials said. Hamas official al-Hayya later said on Iranian state television that Haniyeh was killed by a missile.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Israel will face a “harsh and painful response” from Iran and its allies around the region. An influential Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy was to hold an emergency meeting on the strike later Wednesday.

Hamas’ military wing said in a statement that Haniyeh’s assassination “takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions on the entire region.”

Netanyahu has said Israel will continue its devastating campaign in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated. On Wednesday, he asserted that “everything” Israel has achieved in recent months was because it resisted pressure at home and abroad to end the war.

Israel’s bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 39,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

After months of pounding, Hamas has shown its fighters can still operate in Gaza and fire volleys of rockets into Israel. But it is unclear if it has the capacity to step up attacks in retaliation over Haniyeh’s killing.

Besides a direct retaliation on Israel, Iran could work to increase attacks through its allies, a coalition of Iranian-backed groups known as the “Axis of Resistance,” including Hezbollah, Hamas, mainly Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthi rebels who control much of Yemen.

As a show of support for Hamas, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire almost daily with Israel across the Israeli-Lebanese border in a simmering but deadly conflict that has repeatedly threatened to escalate into all-out war.

[tieflingkisser]

Israel commits three massacres across Gaza in less than one hour

At least 40 were killed on Tuesday in Israeli attacks on the southern, central, and northern Gaza Strip

The Israeli army committed new massacres against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip on 16 July.  The Health Ministry in Gaza announced on Tuesday that 17 people, including several children, were killed and at least 26 injured following an Israeli attack on Al-Attar Street near the designated “safe zone” in the coastal Al-Mawasi area west of the southern city of Khan Yunis.

[...]

At least 40 have been killed in total, according to Al Jazeera. Israel has committed numerous massacres against Gazan civilians over the past few days.  Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in central Gaza's Nuseirat Camp on 14 July, massacring at least 15 displaced Palestinians and injuring over 70, the Gaza health ministry. Israeli forces have carried out over 40 massacres in the crowded camp since the start of the war in October. Israel killed at least 90 civilians and injured hundreds in Al-Mawasi on 13 July in a strike targeting an area designated as a “safe zone” by Tel Aviv.  Last week, four schools were targeted by Israel in a span of four days. 

[...]

Netanyahu implied in a press conference on 13 July that military pressure was necessary to make Hamas give up its demands for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the strip.  “We will continue to stand by the positions that will lead us to the end of this war,” Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said on Saturday, implying that the resistance movement will not abandon its terms. 

[darkmaga-retard]

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

At least four Palestinians were killed and others were injured, including children and women, in an Israeli shelling that targeted tents for displaced people in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.

NBC reported that the families of American prisoners in Gaza are pressuring the White House to conclude a unilateral deal with Hamas.

Israeli occupation forces re-stormed the city of Tulkarm after withdrawing for a few hours.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,878 Palestinians have been killed, and 94,454 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Thursday, September 5, 5:00 pm (GMT+2)

KHALIL AL-HAYYA: We confirm Hamas’s commitment to accepting Biden’s proposal.

GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY: 40,878 Palestinians have been killed, and 94,454 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

AL-JAZEERA: The Israeli occupation forces blew up a building inside the Jenin camp in the West Bank, after reports that the Israeli army had surrounded the Al-Ansar Mosque and informed the residents that it intended to blow it up.

Israeli occupation forces detonated a bomb in the vicinity of the Al-Ansar Mosque in the Jenin camp. pic.twitter.com/5oZwn8Mk9o

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) September 5, 2024

QNN: The occupation forces stormed Tulkarm camp in the West Bank again and sent additional reinforcements.

NETANYAHU (to Fox News): Reports that Israel was 90% close to reaching an agreement on Gaza were inaccurate.

HEZBOLLAH: We attacked with drones the newly established headquarters of the 300th Western Brigade in the south of the Yaara barracks in northern Israel.

[beardedmrbean]

Unconfirmed but there are reports that Israel might’ve managed to kill Ismail Haniyeh which would be wonderful news to know they managed to take out the leader of Hamas

Saw something saying they got a top hamass comander, woke up late so I'm trying to catch up some currently but looks like they got him, was wondering why Iran was so pissed off in the other articles till I got down to this

Hamas’ top political leader was killed Wednesday by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risked escalating into an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.

Israel, which kept silent about the strike, had pledged to kill Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The assassination was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile, intertwined conflicts because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates. The U.S. and other nations scrambled to prevent a wider, deadlier conflict.

In a statement on his official website, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said revenge was “our duty” and that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home.”

Bitter regional rivals, Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.

Haniyeh’s killing also could prompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which U.S. mediators had said were making progress.

And it could inflame already rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which international diplomats were trying to contain after a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

Israel carried out a rare strike Tuesday evening in the Lebanese capital that it said killed a top Hezbollah commander allegedly behind the rocket strike. Hezbollah, which denied any role in the Golan strike, said Wednesday it was searching for the body of Fouad Shukur in the rubble of the building that was hit in a Beirut suburb. The strike killed three women and two children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to Haniyeh’s death. A key question was whether Israel told the U.S., its top ally, ahead of time.

Asked about Haniyeh’s killing, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “This is something we were not aware of or involved in.” Speaking to Channel News Asia, Blinken said he would not speculate about the impact on cease-fire efforts. “But I can tell you that the imperative of getting a cease-fire, the importance that that has for everyone, remains.” ______________

Probably not the best option to have done that inside the capital of Iran.

Fingers crossed for a muted standard middle eastern response, Iran will be shooting things at Israel now, how much is the question.

Article finished under the cut

A top Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, told journalists in Iran that whoever replaces Haniyeh will “follow the same vision” regarding negotiations to end the war — and continue in the same policy of resistance against Israel.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he still had hopes for a diplomatic solution on the Israeli-Lebanon border. “I don’t think that war is inevitable,” he said. “I think there’s always room and opportunity for diplomacy, and I’d like to see parties pursue those opportunities.”

But international diplomats trying to defuse tensions were alarmed. One Western diplomat, whose country has worked to prevent an Israeli-Hezbollah escalation, said the strikes in Beirut and Tehran have “almost killed” hopes for a Gaza cease-fire and could push the Middle East into a “devastating regional war.” The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation.

Spokespeople for Israel’s military and government declined to comment. Israel often refrains from commenting on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency or strikes on other countries.

In a statement by his office, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel doesn’t want war after its strike on the Hezbollah commander in Beirut, “but we are preparing for all possibilities.” He did not mention the Haniyeh killing, and a U.S.-provided summary of his call with Austin did not mention it.

The killing of Haniyeh abroad comes as Israel has not had a clear success in killing Hamas’ top leadership in Gaza, who are believed to be primarily responsible for planning the Oct. 7 attack.

Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. Israel has targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon and Syria during the war, but going after Haniyeh in Iran was vastly more sensitive. Israel has operated there in the past: It is suspected of running a yearslong assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2020, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran.

During Haniyeh’s last hours in Iran, a close ally of Hamas, he was smiling and clapping at the inauguration ceremony of the new President Masoud Pezeshkian. Associated Press photos showed him seated alongside leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group and Hezbollah, and Iranian media showed him and Pezeshkian hugging. Haniyeh had met earlier with Khamenei.

Hours later, the strike hit a residence Haniyeh uses in Tehran, killing him, Hamas said. One of his bodyguards was killed, Iranian officials said. Hamas official Al-Hayya later said on Iranian state television that Haniyeh was killed by a missile.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Israel will face a “harsh and painful response” from Iran and its allies around the region. An influential Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy was to hold an emergency meeting on the strike later Wednesday.

Hamas’ military wing said in a statement that Haniyeh’s assassination “takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions on the entire region.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will continue its devastating campaign in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated. Israel’s bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 39,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

After months of pounding, Hamas has shown its fighters can still operate in Gaza and fire volleys of rockets into Israel. But it is unclear if it has the capacity to step up attacks in retaliation over Haniyeh’s killing.

Instead, the impact may be regional. Besides a direct retaliation on Israel, Iran could work to increase attacks through its allies, a coalition of Iranian-backed groups known as the “Axis of Resistance,” including Hezbollah, Hamas, mainly Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthi rebels who control much of Yemen.

As a show of support for Hamas, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire almost daily with Israel across the Israeli-Lebanese border in a simmering but deadly conflict that has repeatedly threatened to escalate into all-out war. The Houthis and Iraqi and Syrian militias have also fired rockets and drones at Israel and at American bases in the region, though most have been intercepted.

A strike Tuesday night southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed four members of one Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah, which has targeted U.S. bases previously, according to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a militia coalition. It accused the U.S. of being behind the strike.

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations, said American forces had carried out a “defensive airstrike” against combatants who, “based on recent attacks in Iraq and Syria ... posed a threat to U.S. and coalition forces.”

[blogtruenorth]

🟢 Member of the Hamas Political Bureau, Khalil Al-Hayya:

—

- The occupation wants to displace the Palestinian people from their land, but we will thwart this.

- Since the beginning of this crazy war, the zionist occupation has adopted a torrent of lies and deception to use them as a pretext to prolong the period of killing in order to displace the people of Gaza from the north to the south, and then from the south out of Palestine.

- The occupation, by prolonging the war, sets the stage for more terrorist crimes, and the world has unfortunately failed in the face of the values ​​and morals it calls for.

- Whenever the occupation wants to commit several massacres, it cuts off means of communication, then carries out dozens of massacres, its sole goal being to displace our Palestinian people from their land in Gaza.

- We are certain that our people will thwart the displacement plan, and here are our people, in the tens of thousands, still in the northern Gaza area.

- The more the terrorist occupation fails in the face of resistance strikes, the inability to advance, and the loss of many tanks and soldiers, the more it seeks to kill and destroy civilians.

- Targeting hospitals has one goal, which is to displace the Palestinians.

- Hospitals are open to all international organizations to enter, monitor and expose the lies of the occupation.

- We warn people far and wide, and we call on all sane people, if any of them remain, to rein in the terrorist occupation and restrain it.

- Reality contradicts all the terrorist occupation’s claims about hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

- Our heroic resistance is capable of inflicting heavy losses on the occupier, forcing it to drag its tail in defeat.

- The American position supports the occupation’s policy of killing and destruction, and the occupation uses the file of civilians and prisoners to gain time to relieve its internal front.

- The American administration’s priority is to satisfy the terrorist occupation and has given it the green light for all the crimes it commits.

- The American administration is complicit in the crimes committed in Gaza and the killing of innocent people.

- Our priority is to save our people and stop the terrorist zionist aggression.

- The criminal occupation uses the resistance’s prisoner file in a malicious and unethical way, and every time we get close [to a solution] in the discussions, the occupation returns to square one.

- At the end of last week, we agreed with the mediators to release detained civilians and foreigners. However, the occupation renounced the agreement and returned to square one.

- We have a clear approach that we are ready to exchange detained civilians and foreigners in Gaza, in exchange for women and children in zionist prisons, but the occupation is evasive and not affected by killing its prisoners in Gaza.

- The occupation tells each of the mediators something different than what it tells the other party. This is evasion, and it does not bother [the occupation] if the resistance announces the killing of a number of its prisoners in the bombing of Gaza.

- Everyone who is concerned about the prisoners in Gaza must put pressure on the occupation to stop the terrorist aggression, and then we will begin negotiating an exchange.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 17, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 18, 2023

In an NPR piece yesterday, Bill Chappell noted that “the war between Israel and Hamas is being fought, in part, through disinformation and competing claims.” 

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s leadership team currently in Qatar, told Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib of the New York Times that Hamas’s goal in their attack of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel and tortured and killed about 1,200 people, taking another 240 hostage, was to make sure the region did not settle into a status quo that excluded the Palestinians. 

In 2020 the Palestinians were excluded from discussions about the Abraham Accords negotiated by then-president Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (and later Morocco). More recently, Saudi Arabia and Israel were in talks with the United States about normalizing relations.   

Al-Hayya told the reporters that in order to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Hamas leaders intended to commit “a great act” that Israel would respond to with fury. “[W]ithout a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” al-Hayya said, but “[w]e had to tell people that the Palestinian cause would not die.” 

“Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,” al-Hayya said. “This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,” he added. “It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”

Hamas media adviser Taher El-Nounou told the reporters: “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.”

Hamas could be pretty certain that Israel would retaliate with a heavy hand. The governing coalition that took power at the end of 2022 is a far-right coalition, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to hold that coalition together to stay in power, not least because he faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.   

Once it took power, Netanyahu’s government announced that expanding Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank was a priority, vowing to annex the occupied territory. It also endorsed discrimination against LGBTQ people and called for generous payments to ultra-Orthodox men so they could engage in religious study rather than work. It also tried to push through changes to the judicial system to give far more power to the government. 

From January 7 until October 7, 2023, protesters turned out in the streets in huge numbers. With the attack, Israelis have come together until the crisis is resolved.

Netanyahu’s ability to stay in power depended in large part on his promises that he would keep Israelis safe. The events of October 7 on his watch—the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust—shattered that guarantee. Polls show that Israelis blame his government, and three quarters of them think he should resign. Sixty-four percent think the country should hold an election immediately after the war. 

Immediately after the attack, on October 7, Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance” against Hamas, and Israeli airstrikes began to pound Gaza. On October 8, Israel formally declared war. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country’s retaliation would “change the reality on the ground in Gaza for the next 50 years,” and on October 9 he announced “a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Israel and the U.S. have strong historic and economic ties: as Nicole Narea points out in Vox in a review of their history together, the U.S. has also traditionally seen Israel as an important strategic ally as it stabilizes the Middle East, helping to maintain the supply of Middle Eastern oil that the global economy needs. That strategic importance has only grown as the U.S. seeks to normalize ties around the region to form a united front against Iran.

For Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and other envoys, then, it appeared the first priority after the October 7 attack was to keep the conflict from spreading. Biden made it very clear that the U.S. would stand behind Israel should Iran, which backs Hamas, be considering moving in. He warned: “[T]o any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t.”

The movement of two U.S. carrier groups to the region appears so far to be helping to achieve that goal. While Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel since October 7, Iran’s leaders have said they will not join Hamas’s fight and are hoping only to use the conflict as leverage against the U.S.

Militias have fired at least 55 rocket and drone strikes at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since October 7 without killing any U.S. soldiers. In retaliation, the U.S. has launched three airstrikes against militia installations in Syria, killing up to seven men (the military assesses there were not women or children in the vicinity) in the third strike on Sunday. The U.S. keeps roughly 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq to work with local forces to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State.

At the same time that Biden emphasized Israel’s right to respond to Hamas’s attack and demanded the return of the hostages, he also called for humanitarian aid to Gaza through Egypt and warned Netanyahu to stay within the laws of war.

Rounds of diplomacy by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who flew to Israel and Jordan initially on October 11 and has gone back repeatedly, as well as by Biden, who has both visited the region—his second trip to a war zone—and constantly worked the phones, and other envoys, started humanitarian convoys moving into Gaza with a single 20-truck convoy on October 21. By early November, over 100 trucks a day were entering Gaza, the number the United Nations says is the minimum needed. Yesterday the Israeli war cabinet agreed to allow two tankers of fuel a day into Gaza after the U.N. said it couldn’t deliver aid because it had run out of fuel. 

The U.S. has insisted from the start that Israel’s military decisions must not go beyond the laws of war. Israeli officials say they are staying within the law, yet an estimated 11,000 civilians and Hamas fighters (the numbers are not separated out) have died. Gaza has been crushed into rubble by airstrikes, and more than a million people are homeless. That carnage has sparked protests around the world along with calls for a cease-fire, which Israel rejects. 

It has also sparked extreme Islamophobia and antisemitism exacerbated by social media. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, Islamophobia inspired a Chicago man to stab a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy to death; more recently, antisemitism has jumped more than 900% on X (formerly Twitter). On Wednesday, Elon Musk agreed with a virulently antisemitic post on X. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded: “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans.” Advertisers, including IBM and Apple, announced they would no longer advertise on Musk’s platform.

While calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, the Biden administration has continued to focus on getting the hostages out and has rejected calls for a cease-fire, saying such a break would only allow Hamas to regroup. In The Atlantic on November 14, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who negotiated a 2012 cease-fire between Hamas and Israel only to see Hamas violate that agreement two years later, explained that cease-fires have only kicked the can down the road. “Israel’s policy since 2009 of containing rather than destroying Hamas has failed,” she said.  

Clinton called for the destruction of Hamas on the one hand and “a new strategy and new leadership” for Israel on the other. “Instead of the current ultra-right-wing government, it will need a government of national unity that’s rooted in the center of Israeli politics and can make the hard choices ahead,” she wrote. 

Central to those choices is the long-neglected two-state solution that would establish a Palestinian state. Biden and Blinken and a number of Arab governments have backed the idea, but to many observers it seems impossible to pull off. Still, at the same time Clinton’s article appeared, King Abdullah II of Jordan published his own op-ed in the Washington Post  titled: “A two-state solution would be a victory for our common humanity.”

“[L]et’s start with some basic reality,” he wrote. “The fact is that the thousands of victims across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank have been overwhelmingly civilians…. Leaders everywhere have the responsibility to face the full reality of this crisis, as ugly as it is. Only by anchoring ourselves to the concrete facts that have brought us to this point will we be able to change the increasingly dangerous direction of our world…. 

“If the status quo continues, the days ahead will be driven by an ongoing war of narratives over who is entitled to hate more and kill more. Sinister political agendas and ideologies will attempt to exploit religion. Extremism, vengeance and persecution will deepen not only in the region but also around the world…. It is up to responsible leaders to deliver results, starting now.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON