Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's Blog

The 'Hadd' Punishment Against Apostasy from Islam

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi  •  updated Jun 1, 2024 
Cross-posted from Substack

Recently, Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a prominent British Muslim convert to Islam, issued an 'apology' on Twitter/X in which he clarified: "I fully believe in, support and defend all Islamic laws, including hadd for ridda." As the historian and linguist Marijn van Putten notes, just remove the veil of the Arabic terminology and what Hamza is calling for is the application of the death penalty against apostates (i.e. people who have abandoned Islam). While Marijn decried Hamza's remarks and suggested he would report them, Professor Jonathan Brown of Georgetown University (himself a convert to Islam) offered soft apologia for Hamza's position, describing them as "totally unremarkable religious belief." For his part, Javad Hashmi of Harvard University, who co-hosted a Bible-Qur'an course with famous New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, critiqued Hamza's position as a "backwards, medieval view" and offered a substantive refutation of it, but he nonetheless suggested it was reflective of 'cancel culture' to report such views as problematic to social media or employers. That there are academics at prestigious Western universities offering these sorts of soft apologetics for Hamza's position is remarkable to me, but I guess the issue requires some explanation.

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Behind the Idlib Protests

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi  •  updated Jun 1, 2024 
Cross-posted from Substack

The Syrian government is not the only actor to be facing sustained protests against its rule. In the 'liberated' northwest of Syria- specifically the region of Idlib and its environs- there have been widespread demonstrations over the past three months or so against some of the policies of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant insurgent faction, led by Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani. Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham exercises authority not only through its military wing but also various bodies that are nominally independent but in fact backed and controlled by the group, such as the 'Salvation Government' and the 'Public Security Apparatus.' Ultimately, the status quo in the northwest- sustained since 2020 by a ceasefire arrangement brokered between Russia and Turkey- has given rise to a system that has many parallels with how Hamas governed Gaza prior to Israel's latest military campaign: one faction exerting hegemony and implementing an Islamist, authoritarian mode of governance.

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‘We are hated’: Israelis feel isolation over Gaza war

World ‘against Israel’  

NO, IT'S ISRAEL AGAINST THE WORLD



File photo of Israelis attending the funeral of Hanan Yablonka, one of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants, in Tel Aviv on May 26, 2024, as they also chant slogans demanding the release of the rest of the hostages. — AFP pic

Saturday, 01 Jun 2024 

JERUSALEM, June 1 — A series of diplomatic setbacks, strong condemnation of a recent Gaza strike, and intense protests on Western campuses have left Israelis feeling their country is unfairly isolated.

Israelis expected unwavering support from their allies and the international community after Hamas’s October 7 attack.

But as Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas in Gaza deepened, it seems to have lost the sympathy it initially received after the unprecedented attack.

This loss of support intensified following last week’s Israeli strike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, which killed at least 45 people, according to Gazan officials. The military has denied targeting the camp.

The strike drew condemnations from Istanbul to Beijing and from Washington to Paris.

On social media platform Instagram, more than 47 million posts with the hashtag “All eyes on Rafah” have been recorded since the strike.

But Israelis remain defiant despite the growing isolation.

“I don’t think Israel should care what the world has to say... I support our military 100 percent,” Netanel Aronson, a 24-year-old Israeli-American, told AFP.

“I pray for them every day that they should be safe and come home.”



File photo of members of a family walking past a logo designed to represent the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israel, on Alrov Mamilla Avenue in Jerusalem on May 26, 2024. — AFP pic


‘Tragedy for everyone’

At least 36,379 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli bombardments and ground offensive since October 7, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run territory.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign came after the Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took 252 people as hostages, of which 121 are still held in Gaza, including 37 the military says are dead.

“It is a tragedy for everyone,” said Nathalie, who declined to give her last name, referring also to the fate of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Since everybody is connected, we can see what’s happening. We feel that we are hated,” the 50-year-old said.

“We have the feeling that we are accused of being colonialists and imperialists. But we see ourselves as refugees,” she added, echoing the feeling of many Jews who arrived during the creation of Israel in 1948.

The Palestinians call the creation of Israel as the Nakba — or “catastrophe” — when about 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the war over Israel’s creation.

Last month, Israel faced a series of diplomatic setbacks.

While the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its ongoing offensive in Rafah, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three senior Hamas leaders.

Ireland, Norway and Spain also recognised a Palestinian state in a coordinated decision on Tuesday, while Slovenia’s parliament is due to vote on such a proposal next week.


Protesters waves Palestinian flags during a demonstration to show support to Palestinians in central Paris on May 31, 2024. — AFP pic


World ‘against Israel’

Political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin said Israelis were aware the war was damaging their global standing.

“(Israelis) think the world is against Israel. They think that many institutions and countries are anti-Semitic, and that there is a double standard,” Scheindlin said.

She regretted the “devastating” impact of the war on Gazans, but said Israelis see the ongoing military campaign as an “existential struggle” for their people.

Scheindlin said Israelis have been demoralised over the setbacks at international tribunals after Israel was accused of committing some of the worst crimes in Gaza.

Such crimes “Israelis believed were only ever committed against them”, she added.

“So, it’s very hard for them to accept this. They fear the isolation.”

Israelis are also countering the social media campaign “All Eyes on Rafah,” with their own that says “If your eyes are on Rafah, then help us find the hostages”.

In a survey by US-based Pew Research Center before the May 26 strike on a camp of displaced people in Rafah, 40 percent of Israelis thought the country would “definitely” achieve its Gaza war goals.

Only four percent of the Jewish majority thought Israel’s military response in the Palestinian territory had gone “too far”.

But for Christians like Annie Dikbikian, the war has only increased “the hatred” on both sides.

“It’s affecting us... as Christians,” said the Jerusalem-based hairdresser, who hoped “peace, love, and respect” would return soon. 

— AFP

Israel's isolation: an overdue 'reckoning'?

Netanyahu faces moment of 'extreme crisis' following ICJ order to halt Rafah assault


Israel faces a 'diplomatic disaster' as it continues its Gaza offensive
(Image credit: Nick Gammon / AFP / Getty Images)

BY THE WEEK UK
PUBLISHED 5 DAYS AGO

The Gaza war is a "military quagmire and a human tragedy", said The Economist. It is also fast turning into a "diplomatic disaster for Israel", at a critical juncture in its history.

Last week, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor alleged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister had committed war crimes in Gaza: using starvation as a weapon of war and deliberately attacking civilians. (Hamas's leaders were also accused of war crimes.) The move is bitterly contentious, and the ICC judges won't decide for weeks whether there's enough evidence to issue warrants.

There is certainly an arguable case that Netanyahu's government has "breached the laws of war" in Gaza by not providing food and medicine to civilians "to the fullest extent of the means available", as the Geneva Conventions demand. Either way, the PM's "disastrous" strategy in Gaza has brought "ignominy" to Israel. His departure is long overdue.

Israel's 'fire alarm'

The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and Netanyahu's determination to press on with the offensive in Rafah – the southern city where more than a million civilians have sought sanctuary – make it ever harder for Israel's allies to back it, said the FT.

Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to immediately halt its assault in Rafah. Israeli forces pushed on, and on Sunday, 45 people, including many women and children, were killed in an air strike on an encampment housing displaced people in a supposedly safe zone.

Meanwhile, Ireland, Norway and Spain have all recognised Palestinian statehood – a "symbolic blow against an Israeli leader who rails against any talk of a two-state solution".

An "international reckoning" has long been coming, given Netanyahu's record of refusing to offer a credible peace plan to the Palestinians, said Jo-Ann Mort in The Guardian. Now a moment of "extreme crisis" has arrived. This is "a fire alarm for Israel". Will it take heed?

A weakening position

"The world is pitted against Israel in a way we haven't seen before," said The Jerusalem Post.

Much of the international pressure comes from "smug, sanctimonious" critics embracing a "ludicrous and disgusting double standard": why did the ICJ ask for Israel's Rafah operations to be halted, but not for Hamas to free Israeli hostages? Yet we must accept that our leaders' poor decisions and inflammatory rhetoric have paved the way for this growing isolation.

The current pursuit of "total victory", without defining any political goals that can slow the "escalating cycle of bloodshed", has not made us stronger, said Tehila Wenger in Haaretz. It has made us weaker – and is losing us friends.

REVIEWS

Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom


Book Author(s):Maya Wind
Published Date:2024
Publisher:Verso Books
ISBN-13:9781804291740

by Ramona Wadi
walzerscent
June 1, 2024 


“Israeli universities are not independent of the Israeli security state but, rather, serve as an extension of its violence.” Describing a raid by Shin Bet on Birzeit University in April 2022, Maya Wind sets the scene for her book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (Verso Books, 2024). Prior to Israel’s establishment, Zionism had already foreseen the role universities would play in shaping and maintaining the forthcoming settler colonial entity in Palestine.

Discussing the role of universities as strengthening settler outposts and later incorporating them into Israel’s state institutions, Wind describes early on how universities are not safe spaces for Palestinian students on several levels. From the courses offered, the approach towards military studies, the privilege of being Jewish, the links between universities and the paramilitary organisations linked to the Nakba, to Israel’s targeting of universities and students in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, the freedom attributed by the West to Israeli universities is erroneous. And yet, despite Israel’s settler colonial existence, its military rule and its apartheid practices, Israeli universities have enjoyed collaboration with their US and European counterparts.

Columbia University, for example, lauds Israeli universities as democratic, while the Varieties of Democracy Institute lists Israel as: “Among the top 10 percent of countries in the world for academic freedom.” It is, however, as Wind points out, the narrative that Israel has disseminated for itself and stands in contrast to the Palestinian assertions, notably the Palestine Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which makes the link between Israeli academia and the oppression of Palestinians.

The New Experts: Populist Elites and Technocratic Promises in Modi’s India

In Zionist colonial ideology, universities provided both space and physical presence for settler colonialism and violence to thrive. The Hebrew University, for example, was established in 1918, lending strategic and symbolic importance to the Zionist colonial project to lay claims to Jerusalem. Together with Haifa and Rehovot Universities, the Hebrew University was directly involved in the Nakba. Wind quotes Daniel Reisner: “What we do today is a revision of international law, and if you do something long enough, then the world will accept it.”

From this statement, the author expands on how academia in Israel provides the necessary frameworks to legitimise colonial violence against the Palestinian people – international law, archaeology, legal and criminology studies are all subjects that have been manipulated to serve the Zionist colonial ideology and Israel’s colonial expansion. The book details how archaeology is used not only to claim ownership of the land through the Zionist narrative but also to prevent Palestinians from working on their agricultural land. Roof knocking – Israel’s alleged warning before bombing buildings – also emerged from international law departments in Israeli universities. Tel Aviv University, Wind explains, strategises Israel’s counterterror doctrine, giving the example of “third population”, which was coined to describe Palestinians classified as non-combatants who might “potentially interfere with Israeli military operations.”

Looting, demographic changes and the Judaisation of Palestine are also linked to Israeli academia. Wind writes about how Judaisation replaced colonisation in the Zionist narrative and rhetoric. Retaining a Jewish majority, which is also linked to the dispossession of Palestinians and the appropriation of land, was facilitated by universities working in collaboration with the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The Hebrew University, Wind adds, was built on land purchased by the WZO. The same university was also involved in the looting of Palestinian libraries and educational institutions after the Nakba, a task fortified by Israel’s national library when it erased all names from books to dissolve ownership claims and classified the literature as “abandoned property”. Ben Gurion University, Wind writes, was established in 1969 with the aim of appropriating land in the Negev and facilitating the Israeli army’s setting up of its military bases in the area. Ariel University, founded in 1982, was involved in the Judaisation and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Review: Good Jew Bad Jew — Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Assault on Meaning

Wind’s research makes clear that Israeli universities were structured around colonial purposes and highlights Israel’s reliance on academia: “Israel would not exist without the universities.” A case in point is the purpose they served even before the establishment of Israel in 1946. When Jewish universities were contributing towards the eventual colonisation, Haganah was operating from campuses for the purpose of developing biological weapons to use during the 1948 Nakba.

Surveillance is another weapon that Israeli universities employ against Palestinian students, which is tied to subjugation and repression – both facilitating dispossession. In Palestinian universities, Palestinians are also targeted. Wind discusses Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank as a hub of anti-colonial resistance politics and discusses how the Israeli military targets Palestinian university students to eliminate indigenous Palestinians and their legitimate anti-colonial struggle. Israel has, in the past, targeted universities – now academia in Gaza is annihilated. This is in addition to the fact that Palestinians from Gaza are forbidden from studying in occupied East Jerusalem or pursuing studies abroad. Wind cites that over 411 Palestinian groups and associations have been declared illegal by Israel, and students affiliated with any of these organisations are targets for Israel.

The book concludes with an overview of how universities were used by colonialism for land expropriation and colonial settlements. Wind adds: “Where they stand apart, however, is in their explicit and ongoing role in sustaining a regime now overwhelmingly recognised by the international community as apartheid.” Ending Israeli academia’s complicity in colonialism – decolonising the universities – would be a step forward, in Wind’s view. And yet, as the genocide in Gaza rages on, academic freedom remains distant as academia remains embroiled in complacency and complicity.

Irish MP: ‘I hope Benjamin Netanyahu burns in hell’

June 1, 2024

Irish Member of Parliament, Thomas Gould, became emotional over the death of children in Gaza following Israel’s attacks on Rafah last weekend. ‘I hope [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu burns in hell in the same way those children burned,’ he told parliament.

HELL IS A CATHOLIC CREATION COURTESY OF DANTE

 

Myjewishlearning.comwww.myjewishlearning.com/article/heaven-and-hell-in-jewish-tradition/

Heaven and Hell in Jewish Tradition

Like other spiritual traditions, Judaism offers a range of views on the afterlife, including some parallels to the concepts of heaven and hell familiar to ...

Chabad.orgwww.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1594422/jewish/Do-Jews-Believe-in-Hell.htm

Do Jews Believe in Hell? - What Is the Jewish Belief on Hell?

The Jewish mystics described a spiritual place called “Gehinnom.” This is usually translated as “Hell,” but a better translation would be “the Supernal Washing ...

Zionist MP calls for arresting US president

News code : ۱۴۸۸۶۳۰Tally Gotliv, a member of the Israeli regime’s Knesset, filed a complaint with the police of this regime, demanding the arrest of President of the United States Joe Biden.

According to the Palestinian Sama news agency, Gotliv cited Biden's crime as violating security protocols and disclosing details of the Zionist regime's plan to put an end to the war on the Gaza Strip and the prisoner swap.

This representative of the Likud party in the Knesset of the Zionist regime has urged the Israeli police to arrest Biden upon the president’s arrival in the occupied territories.

Speaking at the White House on Friday, the US president unveiled the Israeli regime’s proposal to end the Gaza conflict, saying that it's time for this war to end, and the proposal is expected to lead to a lasting ceasefire in the Strip.

 

Shangri-La Dialogue 2024

Indonesia ready to send peacekeeping, medical forces to support ceasefire in Gaza: Prabowo

Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto said his country is discussing with the relevant parties to speed up the deployment of medical personnel to hospitals in Gaza. 

ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM

Tan Tam Mei
Assistant Foreign Editor
ST
JUN 01, 2024,

SINGAPORE – Indonesia is prepared to send peacekeeping troops and medical forces to support a prospective ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas have been warring, said Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto on June 1.

“We are prepared to contribute significant peacekeeping forces to maintain and monitor this prospective ceasefire as well as provide protection and security to all parties and to all sides,” said Mr Prabowo, who in October will become Indonesia’s eighth president.

Mr Prabowo, along with his vice-president running mate, Mr Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is the son of incumbent president Joko Widodo, won the Feb 14 election with almost 60 per cent of the votes.

Speaking on the second day of the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue, the annual regional security forum held in Singapore, Mr Prabowo said Indonesia is also discussing with the relevant parties to speed up the deployment of medical personnel to hospitals in Gaza.

“Indonesia also is very willing to evacuate and treat wounded Palestinians,” he said, adding that Jakarta is ready to receive and treat up to 1,000 patients in the immediate future.

Refering to United States President Joe Biden’s May 31 announcement of a three-phase Israeli proposal for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Mr Prabowo said the details have to be studied further, but it is “an important step forward”. He also said that the only real solution for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a two-state solution.

Since becoming president-elect, Mr Prabowo, a retired army general, has been active in global engagements, meeting international leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in the months leading up to his October inauguration.

The high-level defence pow-wow in Singapore, attended by global security and defence leaders, including those from Washington and Beijing, is being held amid rising tensions in the South China Sea and growing US-China rivalry.

Mr Prabowo, who has been defence minister since 2019, has not shied away from commenting on geopolitical issues such as the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2023, he pitched a controversial peace plan to end the conflict that began in 2022.

And during his special address on June 1, Mr Prabowo reaffirmed his proposal as one that is “logical, relevant and necessary”.

“It is necessary as an intermediate solution to this difficult, dangerous and, one might even say, potentially disastrous situation in Ukraine,” he said, referring to the plan that called for Ukraine and Russia to withdraw 15km from each party’s forward positions to form a new demilitarised zone, and called for a United Nations referendum on what he termed “disputed” territory.

That plan drew praise from China but criticism from Western nations.

During the session, Mr Prabowo reiterated what he termed the “Asian” way of handling conflict through maintaining good relationships among regional countries, especially amid increased geopolitical tensions and a widening trust deficit between states.

“I’ve been convinced... that real security comes through very good relations between our immediate neighbours,” he said.

Indonesia, the largest economy in South-east Asia and the fourth-most populous nation in the world, must be “close” and “friendly” with its immediate neighbours through engagement, respect and negotiation to solve issues, said Mr Prabowo.

“We have had military conflict with our neighbours... Malaysia and Singapore. But now we are the best of friends.

“We have resolved our differences without interference from any external power.”

In March 2024, Singapore and Indonesia signed landmark agreements that ended years of, at times, heated public wrangling over sensitive issues involving defence, airspace boundaries management and extradition matters.

While he was in Singapore, Mr Prabowo also met Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong.

Both leaders reaffirmed their nations’ close bilateral and people-to-people relations, and took note of the progress made in areas of cooperation such as renewable energy and sustainability.

Mr Prabowo also met Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishan, as well as US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin during this trip.

Famine possibly under way in northern Gaza

despite recent aid efforts – report

Concerns over hunger in Gaza have risen since an expert said Gaza had entered ‘full-blown famine’ after months of war.

 by Joe Connor
2024-06-05 




An independent group of experts has warned famine is possibly under way in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it.

The group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) said famine in Gaza “is possible, if not likely”.

Concerns about deadly hunger have been high in recent months and spiked after the head of the World Food Programme last month said northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of war. Experts at the UN agency later said Cindy McCain was expressing a personal opinion.Israeli soldiers work on a tank in a staging area near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel (AP)

An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they are too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.


That is according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collection of UN agencies, governments and other bodies that in March warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

Tuesday’s report by Fews Net is the first technical assessment by an international organisation saying that famine is possibly occurring in northern Gaza.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development, Fews Net is an internationally recognised authority on famine that provides evidence-based and timely early warning information for food insecurity.Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis (AP)

It also helps inform decisions on humanitarian responses in some of the world’s most food insecure countries.


But for a formal declaration of famine, the data must be there.

Such a declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide.

The report cautioned that data collection would likely be impeded as long as the war goes on. It said people – including children – are dying of hunger-related causes across the territory and that those conditions will likely persist until at least July, if there is no fundamental change in how food aid is distributed.

The report also cautioned that efforts to increase aid into Gaza are insufficient, and urged Israel’s government to act urgently.




The UN and international aid agencies for months have said not enough food or other humanitarian supplies are entering Gaza, and Israel faces mounting pressure from top ally the US and others to let in more aid.

Israel has repeatedly denied there is famine under way in Gaza and rejected allegations it has used hunger as a weapon in its war against the militant Hamas group. It has opened a number of new crossings into Gaza in recent months, saying they helped increase the flow of aid.

But Israel has also been expanding its offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, once the main hub of humanitarian aid operations. That invasion has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians facing hunger.

The Israeli military, which is responsible for the crossings into Gaza, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Fews Net report

Israel captures all points of aid access to Gaza after seizing Philadelphi Corridor

Officials in Gaza, international organizations insist there is no alternative to opening all border crossings to combat humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Mohamed Majed and Ali Semerci | 02.06.2024


GAZA CITY, Palestine

After Israel’s announcement on Wednesday that it had taken control of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Palestine-Egypt border, the army blockade of all borders of the Gaza Strip was reinforced, and all aid entry points were captured.

This move severs Gaza's geographical connection with Egypt, enabling the Tel Aviv administration to obstruct or restrict the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The region has been experiencing a major humanitarian crisis due to ongoing attacks since Oct. 7, 2023.

The most affected by this development are the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip where people are already suffering from severe food, water, and medicine shortages due to Israel's restrictions, which violate international laws and the laws of war.

According to a statement from the Gaza government’s Media Office, 2.3 million Palestinians, including 2 million who have been displaced multiple times and rely on daily aid, need more than 7 million meals per day due to Israel’s "starvation" policy.

Additionally, fuel, medicine, and other vital necessities must be sent to the region to meet the needs of the displaced population.

However, Israel’s strict restrictions on aid entry and the closure of border crossings are deepening the humanitarian crisis in Palestine's besieged enclave.

Rafah border crossing seized

On May 7, the Israeli army launched a ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where displaced Palestinians had taken refuge.

The army seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, closing the crossings.

This situation made it impossible to deliver aid through Rafah or evacuate wounded people who needed treatment outside of Gaza.

Egypt declared that it would not accept "Israel's policy of fait accompli" and its imposition at the Rafah Border Crossing, and refused to coordinate with Israel.

Cairo blamed Tel Aviv for the border crossing closure and the potential consequences that would further escalate the crisis in Gaza.

Limited aid trucks enter Gaza

During a phone call on May 24, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his American counterpart Joe Biden agreed to temporarily deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza via the Karem Abu Salem border crossing, also known in Israel as Kerem Shalom.

However, since May 24, only a limited number of aid trucks have been able to enter Gaza through the Kerem Abu Salem Border Crossing due to Israel’s strict restrictions.

The Kerem Abu Salem Border Crossing has been closed to aid entry to Gaza since May 5. During May, the crossing was opened and closed twice, with only a few dozen commercial trucks entering.

Most Gazans, however, have no income source or the ability to purchase goods from the private sector due to ongoing attacks since Oct.7.

According to the Gaza government’s Media Office, only 215 aid trucks, including 109 loaded with flour and six with medicine, managed to enter Gaza last week through a point established by the Israeli army west of Beit Lahia.

The government media office in Gaza said on Sunday that the US-built temporary pier on the coast of Gaza delivered only 100 trucks of aid in a week since operations began.

The floating dock collapsed due to weather conditions and strong waves and the US estimates that repairs will take more than a week.

Officials in Gaza and international organizations insist that there is no alternative to opening all border crossings to combat the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The government in Gaza stated that the US is trying to improve its “ugly image” with the pier.

Blockade ongoing for 18 Years

Israel’s capture of the Philadelphi Corridor, which completely blocks Gaza, strengthens the blockade that has been in place for 18 years.

After Hamas won the parliamentary elections in 2006 and took control of the Gaza Strip, Israel began imposing a blockade on Gaza, which was tightened in 2007.

Israel's blockade of Gaza includes the closure of four border crossings: Karni, Nahal Oz, Kerem Ebu Salim, and Sufa.

The Beit Hanoun Border Crossing was designated for individual entry and exit, while the Kerem Abu Salem Border Crossing was reserved for commercial goods, with both crossings open and closed on a limited basis.

Despite increasing international calls for a resolution to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the International Court of Justice’s ruling to halt attacks on Rafah, Israel has tightened its siege on the Gaza Strip by controlling the Philadelphi Corridor.

According to Sam Rose, director of planning for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), humanitarian aid is only a few kilometers from Gaza's border, but Palestinians are on the verge of famine.

Rose highlighted the difficulties encountered in delivering aid to Gaza due to restrictions and arbitrary inspections imposed by Israeli authorities, calling the international community to put pressure on Israel to allow aid trucks to enter Gaza through known borders such as Rafah and Kerem Abu Salem, as well as to reopen the al-Mintar, al-Shuja'iya, and Beit Hanoun borders.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan

THEY RELIVE THEIR COLLECTIVE MEMORIES 

Thousands of Israel nationalists march on flashpoint Jerusalem Day

By

 AFP

Waving flags and many chanting anti-Arab slogans, thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through annexed east Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, with main streets empty of Palestinians fearing attacks.

The so-called Jerusalem Day flag march commemorates the Israeli army’s capture of the city’s eastern sector in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site, which Jews call the Temple Mount.

Thousands of Jewish nationalists, including far-right activists, marched through predominantly Arab neighbourhoods of the Old City, waving Israeli flags, dancing and occasionally shouting inflammatory or racist slogans.

“This is my country. I am the owner here. I’m the boss here, there is no Palestine,” screamed one marcher.

From early on Wednesday, police set up barriers near Damascus Gate, deploying more than 3,000 officers.

Most shops in the Old City were closed before the march, as streets emptied of Palestinians and filled with young Israelis, some carrying weapons.

“If you wander the streets, you will see how they (nationalist boys marching) work to provoke people, beat and break people”, Jalal Saman, a shopkeeper at the Old City told AFP before the march.

“Every year the same problems and events, but year after year they increase. The problems, the hatred has become greater,” the grocer said.

Moments later, a large group of boys insulted and threw garbage at Saman, prompting security forces to disperse the crowd before moving on to break up another clash.

One altercation began when stones were thrown from a roof, an AFP correspondent reported. Police said 18 people suspected of various offences, including assault, had been arrested.

Outside the Old City, families and youth stopped near the city hall in west Jerusalem to sing along to live music and dance in an atmosphere void of tensions and violence.

The march commemorates Jerusalem’s reunification under Israeli rule after it captured the city’s eastern half — home to the historic Old City and its sites holy to three Abrahamic religions — in the 1967 war.

– ‘Victory is ours’ –

For many Palestinians, the route through predominantly Arab neighbourhoods is seen as a deliberate provocation. Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

By the time the march officially began, all shops on the route had been shuttered, and the worst clashes had passed.

Marching down the narrow streets of the Old City, some chanted “The people of Israel will live” or “The eternal people aren’t scared.”

Others entoned racist slogans such as “We will burn your villages” or “All Arabs can suck it”.

“Most of the people in the homes stayed home so as not to cause any friction with the settlers,” 62 year old guide Nasser Moussa told AFP towards the end of the march.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said at the march: “We send a message to Hamas. Jerusalem is ours. Damascus gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours.”

“With the help of God, the full victory is ours,” he said, as crowds cheered.

Elie Duran, 64, said the celebration had taken on greater meaning after the war in Gaza.

“We celebrate every year with so much fervour, maybe a little more this year because I lost my son in Gaza this year, so there’s something more emotional for me,” he told AFP.

– ‘Rampage of settlers’ –

Police said they deployed officers throughout the city to “maintain public order, safety and secure property, as well as direct traffic” during the march.

As tight streets became packed with religious youth groups entering the Old City in waves, police had little space to prevent acts of petty vandalism on Arab businesses.

The march ended Wednesday evening at its normal terminus, the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

In 2021, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem as the march began, triggering a 12-day conflict with Israel.

On Wednesday, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh condemned the event.

“The rampage of settlers in Jerusalem confirms that Jerusalem is the focus of the conflict, and our people will not rest until the occupation ends and an independent Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said in a statement.

This year’s march comes nearly eight months after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 36,586 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

by Louis Baudoin-Laarman and Michael Blum

Hamas signals post-war ambition in talks with Palestinian rival Fatah

People hold Fatah flags during a protest in support of the people of Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, October 27, 2023. 

REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma/File Photo

JUN 05, 2024

RAMALLAH - Deep divisions will limit progress at reconciliation talks between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah this month, conversations with five sources in the groups indicate, but the meetings highlight that the Islamist group is likely to retain influence after Israel's war in Gaza.

The talks between Hamas and the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be held in China in mid-June, according to officials from both sides. They follow two recent rounds of reconciliation talks, one in China and one in Russia. China's foreign ministry declined to comment.

The next meeting will be held amid attempts by international mediators to reach a ceasefire deal for Gaza, with one of the key sticking points being the "day-after" plan - how the enclave will be governed.

Considered a terrorist organisation by many Western nations, Hamas was shunned long before its Oct. 7 attacks killed 1,200 people in Israel, with more than 250 hostages taken, triggering the war in Gaza.

But even as it is pummelled militarily, the meetings of Hamas politicians with officials from the Fatah party that controls Palestinian politics in the Israeli-occupied West Bank point to the group's aim of shaping the post-war order in the Palestinian territories, according to a source familiar with conversations within Hamas.

The person, like other unnamed officials in this story, declined to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss sensitive matters with the media.

Hamas, which ruled Gaza before the war, recognises it cannot be part of any internationally recognised new government of the Palestinian territories when fighting in the enclave eventually ends, said the source.

Nonetheless, it wants Fatah to agree to a new technocratic administration for the West Bank and Gaza as part of a wider political deal, the source and senior Hamas official Basim Naim said.

"We are speaking about political partnership and political unity to restructure the Palestinian entity," Naim, who attended the previous round of China talks, said in an interview.

"Whether Hamas is in the government or outside it, that is not a prime demand of the movement and it doesn't see it a condition for any reconciliation," he said. Naim, like much of Hamas' political leadership, operates in exile outside of Gaza.

The prospect of Hamas surviving as an influential political player is a thorny issue for Western states.

Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Gaza war goal of destroying the Iran-backed group, most observers agree Hamas will exist in some form after a ceasefire. An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement has deep reach and ideological roots in Palestinian society.

The United States and EU oppose any role for Hamas in governing Gaza after the war, during which Israel’s offensive has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Still, some U.S. officials have privately expressed doubt Israel will eradicate the group. A senior U.S. official said on May 14 Washington thought it unlikely Israel could achieve “total victory”.

Killing every member of Hamas was unrealistic and was not the goal of the Israeli army, but destroying Hamas as a governing authority was "an achievable and attainable military objective," said Peter Lerner, a spokesperson for Israel's military.

LOW ODDS

Western states support the idea of post-war Gaza being run by a revamped Palestinian Authority (PA), the administration led by Abbas that has limited self-rule over patches of the West Bank. Based in Ramallah, the PA is broadly acknowledged globally as representing the Palestinians and receives security assistance from the United States and the EU.

Led by Abbas, and before him Yasser Arafat, Fatah was the undisputed leader of the Palestinian cause for decades until the rise of Hamas, an Islamist movement.

The PA also ran Gaza until 2007, when Hamas drove Fatah from the enclave, a year after defeating Fatah in parliamentary elections - the last time Palestinians voted.

Despite the talks, the factions' enmity means odds remain low for a deal to reunite the administration of the Palestinian territories, the conversations with the five sources indicated, a view echoed by four experts.

"My expectations of rapprochement are minimal or less," said Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Palestinians aspire to a state on all territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, when Israel seized the West Bank - including East Jerusalem - and the Gaza Strip.

Despite 143 countries recognising Palestine, including Ireland, Spain and Norway last week, hopes for a sovereign nation have been diminishing for years as Israel expands settlements in the West Bank and opposes statehood.

The Hamas-Fatah split further complicates the goal. The factions hold deeply diverging views about strategy, with Fatah committed to negotiations with Israel to bring about an independent nation while Hamas backs armed struggle and does not recognise Israel.

The bitterness spilled into the open at an Arab summit in May, when Abbas accused Hamas of giving Israel "more pretexts" to destroy Gaza by launching the Oct. 7 attack.

Hamas said the remark was regrettable, calling Oct. 7 a crucial moment in the Palestinian struggle.

Hamas' 1988 founding charter called for Israel's destruction. In 2017, Hamas said it agreed to a transitional Palestinian state within frontiers pre-dating the 1967 war, though it still opposed recognising Israel's right to exist.

Hamas has restated this position since the eruption of the Gaza war.

NEW GOVERNMENT?

In March, Abbas swore in a new PA cabinet headed by Mohammed Mustafa, a close Abbas aide who oversaw Gaza reconstruction during a previous stint in government from 2013 to 2014. Though the cabinet is made up of technocrats, Abbas' move angered Hamas, which accused him of acting unilaterally.

Senior Fatah official Sabri Saidam told Reuters that forming a new government would amount to wasting time.

A second senior official familiar with Fatah's terms for the China talks said it wants Hamas to acknowledge the role of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the Palestinians’ sole legitimate representative, and to commit to the agreements the PLO has signed.

This would include the Oslo accords signed 30 years ago under which the PLO recognised Israel and which Hamas violently opposed.

The official said Fatah would want the government to have full security and administrative control in Gaza - a challenge to Hamas' sway there.

Fundamentally at odds with the PLO over Israel, Hamas has never joined the body but has long called for elections to its governing institutions, including its legislative body known as the PNC.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday that in addition to a government of "national consensus", the group wants elections for the PA presidency, parliament and the PNC.

Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said Hamas was interested in reconciliation only on its terms, maintaining its politics, security apparatus and ideology, which he said would risk plunging the PLO into international isolation.

"Abbas cannot accept them with their politics, because that would jeopardize the only PLO achievement - international recognition," he said.

PART OF THE FABRIC

Despite this, Fatah official Tayseer Nasrallah said Fatah viewed Hamas as part of "the Palestinian national fabric and part of the political fabric also".

Saidam said consensus was necessary to manage aid and reconstruction in Gaza. Fatah had made clear it would not return to Gaza "on the back of an (Israeli) tank, but rather we will come in agreement with everyone", he added.

Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heinrich said the PA’s willingness to work with Hamas was "unfortunate."

An opinion poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in March showed Hamas enjoying more support than Fatah, with its popularity still higher than before the war.

Being hosted by China has marked a diplomatic boost for the Iran-backed Hamas.

Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of the Egyptian state-owned paper Al-Ahram and a specialist on Palestinian affairs, said Hamas was more interested in a deal than Fatah, because reconciliation could give the battle-weary organisation cover to rebuild.

Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said it was difficult to imagine Hamas embarking on any military action that would prompt large-scale Israeli retaliation in the foreseeable future.

But, he said, reconciliation would be a "transitional phase that would allow Hamas to slowly rearm.".

 REUTERS

EXPANDING THE MIDDLE EAST WAR

Israel hit Lebanese residential buildings with white phosphorous – rights group

5 June 2024

Israel Lebanon White Phosphorous. Picture: PA

Human rights advocates say it is a crime under international law to fire the munitions into populated areas.

A global human rights group has claimed that Israel used white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in at least five towns and villages in southern Lebanon, possibly harming civilians and violating international law.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report that there was no evidence of burn injuries due to white phosphorus in Lebanon, but that researchers had “heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage”.

Human rights advocates say it is a crime under international law to fire the controversial munitions into populated areas.

Israel maintains it uses the white phosphorus only as a smokescreen and not to target civilians.

The white-hot chemical substance can set buildings on fire and burn human flesh down to the bone.

Survivors are at risk of infections and organ or respiratory failure, even if their burns are small.

The HRW report includes interviews with eight residents in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, and the group says it has verified and geolocated images from almost 47 photos and videos that show white phosphorus shells landing on residential buildings in five Lebanese border towns and villages.

The Lebanese health ministry says at least 173 people have required medical care after exposure to white phosphorus.

The researchers found that the controversial incendiaries were used in residential areas in Kfar Kila, Mays al-Jabal, Boustan, Markaba, and Aita al-Shaab, towns that are among the hardest-hit in eight months of fighting.

The New York-based rights group alongside Amnesty International also accused Israel of using white phosphorus in residential areas in October 2023, less than a month after clashes began between the Israeli military and the powerful Hezbollah group along the southern Lebanon-Israel border, a day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.

In its report, HRW called on the Lebanese government to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute “grave international crimes” within Lebanon since October 2023.

“Israel’s recent use of white phosphorus in Lebanon should motivate other countries to take immediate action toward this goal,” said HRW Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss.

More 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including more than 70 civilians and non-combatants.

In Israel, 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed since October. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.

By Press Association

 

Hamas says Israel wants ‘endless’ truce negotiations

A girl injured by Israeli bombardment on al-Bureij was taken to the Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. — AFP pic

Wednesday, 05 Jun 2024 

BEIRUT, June 5 — A senior Hamas official in Beirut yesterday accused Israel of prolonging truce negotiations and repeated the Palestinian group’s position rejecting any deal that excludes a permanent ceasefire.

The statement came as mediator Qatar said it was awaiting a “clear position” from Israel on a proposed Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said Israel’s response to mediators regarding a ceasefire proposal that Hamas accepted on May 6 “speaks to opening the door to endless negotiations on everything”.

Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in months of back-and-forth negotiations over details for a ceasefire and the exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Talks stalled in early May when Israel began ground operations in Rafah, southern Gaza.

In a bid to revive the negotiations, Biden said on Friday that Israel proposed a new three-stage roadmap.

Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut that according to the US president, “the mediators guarantee to continue negotiations indefinitely, until the two parties agree”.

Hamas had told mediators it “cannot agree to a deal that doesn’t that does not secure... a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the achievement of a serious, real prisoner exchange deal”, he said.

That Israel has not agreed to such a deal shows it wants to reclaim the hostages and “then resume its aggression... it doesn’t want a ceasefire,” he said.

“We call on the mediators to obtain a clear position from the Israeli occupation, on its commitment to... a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal,” Hamdan added.

Previous mediation frameworks have failed over Hamas’s demand for a permanent ceasefire, while Israel insists on its right to pursue its objective of destroying the Palestinian group.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Tuesday that “we have yet to see a very clear position from the Israeli government towards the principles laid out by President Biden,” adding there was no “concrete approval” from either side

. — AFP

Bid for dominance over Asia Pacific tests US, China attempt at detente

US defence chief Lloyd Austin hails a ‘new era of security’ in the Asia Pacific, drawing a strong pushback from a senior Chinese official.

Lloyd Austin told attendees of the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore that in the past three years there had been a 'new convergence around nearly all aspects of security' in the Asia Pacific region [Edgar Su/Reuters]

Published On 1 Jun 2024

Defence chief Lloyd Austin has praised a “new era of security” in the Asia Pacific as he underscored that the region remained a major strategic priority for the United States, drawing a quick pushback from a senior Chinese military official.

Austin made the statement on Saturday, a day after holding a crucial meeting in Singapore with his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, during which they agreed to resume military-to-military communications amid efforts to ease growing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

China hailed Friday’s face-to-face talks and the agreement to mend fraying security ties as “stabilising”. But competition and tensions over a slew of issues – from Taiwan to the South China Sea – continue to test the resolve of both countries.

On Saturday, Austin said that in the past three years there had been a “new convergence around nearly all aspects of security” in the region, where there was a shared understanding of “the power of partnership”.

“This new convergence is producing a stronger, more resilient and more capable network of partnerships and that is defining a new era of security” in the region, Austin told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

However, it was not “about imposing one country’s will” or “bullying or coercion”, Austin said, in an apparent shot at China, which has increased its sabre-rattling over self-ruled Taiwan and grown more confident in pressing its claims in the South China Sea.

“This new convergence is about coming together and not splitting apart,” Austin said. “It’s about the free choices of sovereign states.”

Responding to Austin, Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng accused the US of seeking to build “an Asia Pacific version of NATO”, and described the superpower as the “greatest challenge to regional peace and stability”.

Jing said the US strategy was intended “to create division, provoke confrontation and undermine stability”.

“It only serves the selfish geopolitical interests of the US and runs counter to the trend of history and the shared aspirations of regional countries for peace, development and win-win cooperation,” said Jing, who serves as the deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission.

Reporting from Singapore, Al Jazeera’s Patrick Fok said Austin left “very little doubt” that the US was trying to project its power in the region.

“That seems to provoke a response from the Chinese side,” he said, pointing out that the “acrimony has spilled out in the open”.

He added: “The message that we are getting here [is that] the US is deeply committed to the Indo-Pacific and that the US is not going anywhere.”

‘Inviting wolves’

Austin has been attempting to refocus attention on China’s actions in the Asia Pacific, as he sought to alleviate concerns that conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have distracted from his country’s security commitments in the region.

“Despite these historic clashes in Europe and the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific has remained our priority theatre of operations,” Austin stressed.

“Let me be clear: The United States can be secure only if Asia is secure,” Austin said. “That’s why the United States has long maintained our presence in this region.”

Austin also highlighted the importance of alliances in the region, highlighting the need for “peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue and not coercion or conflict”.

During their meeting on Friday, Austin was warned by Dong that the US should not interfere in China’s affairs with Taiwan, defence ministry spokesperson Wu Qian told reporters. China claims the democratically governed island as its own territory.

Some US officials have been warning that Beijing has become more emboldened in recent years, recently launching what it described as “punishment” drills around Taiwan.

China is also furious over the US’s deepening regional defence ties, particularly with the Philippines, and its regular deployment of warships and fighter jets in the South China Sea.

On Saturday, Austin insisted that the US’s commitment to defend the Philippines under their mutual defence treaty remained “ironclad”, as repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the South China Sea have stoked fears of a wider conflict.

“America will continue to play a vital role in the Indo-Pacific, together with our friends across the region that we share and care so much about,” Austin said, describing Chinese activities in disputed waters with the Philippines as “dangerous harassment”.

Jing, the Chinese general, said these alliances only contributed to instability in the region.

“It is natural for neighbours to bicker sometimes, but we need to resolve disagreements through dialogue and consultation rather than inviting wolves into our house and playing with fire,” he said.