All posts tagged: Islamic Jihad

Dozens reported killed in Israeli ‘targeted air strike’ on UN-run school in Gaza

Dozens reported killed in Israeli ‘targeted air strike’ on UN-run school in Gaza

Published by Sam

Israel hit a Gaza school on Thursday with what it described as a targeted airstrike on up to 30 Hamas fighters inside, while a Hamas official said 40 people including women and children were killed as they sheltered in the U.N. site. Issued on: 06/06/2024 – 05:59Modified: 06/06/2024 – 09:52 4 min The strike took place at a sensitive moment in mediated negotiations on a ceasefire agreement entailing the release of hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 and some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Hamas seeks a permanent end to the war.  Israel says it must destroy the Islamist group first. The United States issued a joint statement with other countries on Thursday calling on Israel and Hamas to make whatever compromises were necessary to finalise a deal as the two sides gave contradictory accounts of the school attack. Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office, rejected Israel’s assertion that the U.N. school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, had hidden a Hamas command post. “The occupation uses … false …

Netanyahu proposes plan for post-war Gaza with Israeli army having ‘freedom’ to operate

Netanyahu proposes plan for post-war Gaza with Israeli army having ‘freedom’ to operate

Published by Sam

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed a plan for post-war Gaza that envisions local Palestinian officials without links to Hamas or its foreign backers governing the territory, Israeli media reported Friday. Issued on: 23/02/2024 – 12:05 2 min The proposal, which Netanyahu submitted to his security cabinet late Thursday, would also see the Israeli army persisting in its war on Hamas until it achieves key goals. Those include dismantling Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and securing the release of all hostages still held captive in Gaza. After the war ends, Gaza’s civil affairs would be run by “local officials with administrative experience” and who are “not linked to countries or entities that support terrorism”, the Times of Israel newspaper reported quoting key elements of Netanyahu’s plan. Even after the war, the Israeli army would have “indefinite freedom” to operate throughout Gaza to prevent any resurgence of terror activity, according to the plan. “The plan states that Israel will move forward with its already-in-motion project to establish a security buffer zone on the Palestinian side of …

Iran Is Not a ‘Normal’ Country

Iran Is Not a ‘Normal’ Country

Published by skeptic

Hours after Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, all of Iran’s parliamentarians rose from their seats to chant “Death to Israel!” and “Palestine is victorious; Israel will be destroyed!” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and other top Iranian officials, including the former head of the country’s military forces, expressed their support for Hamas, declaring that Iran “will stay with the Palestinian freedom fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem.” These statements were not symbolic. Despite cleverly choreographed denials designed to avert direct military retaliation, Iran’s fingerprints were all over the October 7 operation. Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are only the biggest in a network of 19 armed groups that Iran has established along Israel’s borders. The groups get financial support, training, and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Hamas receives an estimated $100 million annually, Hezbollah $700 million, and Islamic Jihad tens of millions. Even if Iran did not direct Hamas’s attack on that day, senior Iranian leadership was almost certainly aware of the group’s …

In the occupied West Bank, families long to bury their dead

In the occupied West Bank, families long to bury their dead

Published by Sam

An Israeli strike killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, four of whom were brothers. The attack took place in the city of Jenin and left a total of seven dead, including an Israeli police officer. As the family of the brothers buried their “martyrs”, others are still waiting for the remains of relatives held by the Israeli army to be returned.  She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t speak. Ibtesam Darwish simply looks stunned. “I wasn’t just their mother, I was their friend,” she says. “We were so close.” Sitting in her neighbour’s courtyard in Qabatiya, a city in the northern occupied West Bank, she waits for the remains of her sons.  Twenty-two-year-old Rami, 24-year-old Ahamed, 27-year-old Hazaa and 29-year-old Alaa were killed along with two others in an Israeli airstrike near the entrance to Jenin at 6am on Sunday in an area called Martyr’s Triangle. A seventh person died of their wounds later that day.    Ibtesam Darwish (pink hijab) awaits the remains of her four sons in Qabatia on January 7, 2024. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24 The Israeli military …

The Axis of Resistance Has Been Gathering Strength

The Axis of Resistance Has Been Gathering Strength

Published by skeptic

For the first time since 2006, the Lebanese are again facing the prospect of a devastating war with Israel, on the back of the current conflict in Gaza. Much of the population does not want, and knows it cannot afford, such a war. Lebanon is still in the throes of an economic collapse that began in 2019. Yet Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanon’s political scene, seems moved less by what its countrymen want than by the strategic priorities of its sponsor, Iran. The Iranians have worked painstakingly in the past decade to build up a redoubtable deterrence capability on Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Hezbollah realizes that a full-scale conflict might weaken its hold over Lebanon and will try to avoid such an outcome. But ultimately, the party will follow Iran’s lead. Earlier this year, Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, began referring to a “unification of the fronts” strategy. The idea was that Iran-backed armed groups, joined into the so-called Axis of Resistance, would coordinate operations against Israel, especially in defense of Muslim holy …

This War Isn’t Like Israel’s Earlier Wars

This War Isn’t Like Israel’s Earlier Wars

Published by skeptic

On Saturday night, I was seated on the first El Al plane to fly from the United States to Israel since Hamas had attacked my country. Many airlines had canceled flights to and from Israel, but El Al had refused to grant the terrorists that victory. Though we took off after midnight, sleep was impossible. My mind writhed thinking of the reports of unbearable Israeli casualties, the images of the captured and the dead, and the prospect of wider war. Alongside those waking nightmares was an agonizing irony. I’d just come from participating in events in New York marking the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Just as in 1973, when Israeli reservists living or vacationing abroad rushed to rejoin their units already in combat, my plane was filled with young men ready to trade the thrills of New York for the horrors of a war under way. Their presence was another reason to reflect on the eerie similarities and stark differences between these two wars, both of which broke out on Jewish holidays—the …