Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) speaks with Government Secretary Tzachi Braverman during the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on July 23, 2017. [ABIR SULTAN / POOL / AFP/ Getty Images]
Judges in Israel have agreed unanimously to resume the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges in Tel Aviv on 10 December, local media have reported.
Netanyahu had asked for his appearance before the Israeli court to be postponed for two weeks, claiming that he was busy with the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip. He will appear before the court next week, as it considers the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which were first brought against him in January 2020. His trial began in May 2020.
In a related context, Israeli media also reported that the Israeli court decided to release Netanyahu’s advisor who was accused of leaking security documents and to put him under house arrest.
The allegation that the advisor stole secret documents from the Israeli army, transferred them to Netanyahu’s office, and then leaked them to foreign media outlets has sparked widespread controversy in Israel. The apparent intention in stealing the documents, manipulating their content and leaking them was to influence Israeli public opinion to reject any prisoner exchange deal, and to create an atmosphere hostile to the protest movement against Netanyahu’s government by claiming that such protests strengthen the power and position of Hamas.
Palestinian residents, carrying their belongings, are on their way to migrate for safer areas following the Israeli army’s orders evacuation of the Bani Suheila town in Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 07, 2024 [Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency]
The UN, on Tuesday, reported that Israel’s recurring evacuation orders affecting approximately 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip have exposed civilians to risk, Anadolu Agency reports.
“Israel’s repeated evacuation orders, which are now in effect for about 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip, leaves civilians exposed to the danger of hostilities and deprived of access to essential services,” spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said at a news conference.
Saying that northern Gaza has been under a tightening siege for nearly two months, Dujarric said around 65,000 to 500,000 people are unable to access regular food, water, electricity or reliable health care.
Dujarric stated that “the entire population of Gaza needs humanitarian assistance,” and stressed the plight of more than 58,000 people with disabilities who are facing additional challenges in accessing food.
In the southern areas of Gaza, he said that “some people are skipping meals and searching through trash to find food.”
Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Dujarric warned that humanitarian access continues to be obstructed.
“In November, out of 578 planned aid movements across Gaza that require coordination with Israeli authorities, only 41 per cent were facilitated. More than a third were denied outright, and the rest were either impeded or cancelled due to security and logistical challenges,” he said.
Dujarric reported that aid missions to northern Gaza have been especially disrupted, with efforts to reach besieged areas such as Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun encountering severe obstacles.
A view of destruction near Kamal Adwan Hospital after Israeli forces’ withdrawal, northern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2024. [Karam Hassan – Anadolu Agency]
Three staff members of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza were wounded, one critically, when the Israeli occupation army bombed the facility’s courtyard again on Tuesday, the Palestinian Information Centre has reported. This was the fifth attack by the Israeli occupation army on the medical facility in recent weeks.
A medical source said that at least one Israeli quadcopter was used in the attack. One of the wounded employees is now in the intensive care unit.
The hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, said that drones were dropping bombs, scattering shrapnel at the site.
Meanwhile, media sources reported a surge in Israeli air strikes on Gaza City where Al-Ahli Hospital has been struggling to deal with mass casualties.
A demonstrator is seen wearing a placard that calls for the arrest of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the rally. Pro-Palestine demonstrators joined the 21st demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) since October 2023. (Photo by David Tramontan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The live-documented ethnic cleansing in Gaza, much like in 1948, alongside the expansion of Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank, underscores the true undeclared objectives in Israel’s ostensible “total victory.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel’s war on Gaza will continue until achieving what he terms “total victory.” Instead of critically examining Netanyahu’s vague and open-ended objectives, much of the Western media and many governments frame the onslaught as self-defense, and some even normalize the genocide as a “humane” attempt to “free” Israeli captives.
At the same time, the same pundits decontextualized the Palestinian right to self-defense by ignoring that the October 7 revolt was a direct response to over two decades of Israel’s imposed “starvation diet” blockade on Gaza. Exactly, as the West turns a blind eye, and continues to enable Israel’s theft of Palestinian-occupied land in the West Bank to benefit Jewish-only colonies.
Meanwhile, these media outlets downplay or dismiss Israel’s treacherous undeclared war objectives, even to the detriment of Israeli captives and the immense civilian suffering in Gaza.
For over a year, Netanyahu has prioritized an agenda to reoccupy and to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza rather than engage in negotiations for prisoner’s swap. Especially since the release of Israeli captives would undermine one of Netanyahu’s primary pretexts for pursuing his sinister objectives.
This is only possible in the wake of Western leaders embracing Netanyahu’s racist perspective, focusing only on the well-being of Israeli captives, while ignoring the over 10,000 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails, and the welfare of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. For instance, Joe Biden has expressed recently his concern over Netanyahu potentially delaying action to secure the release of Israeli captives until January 20, 2025, while expressing no sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians in 2024 and beyond.
With the conspicuous silence or impotence of world bodies, the Israeli captives became a convenient fig leaf under which Netanyahu saw as an opportunity to reoccupy Gaza. It is worth recalling that in 2005, Netanyahu resigned from the Israeli government in protest against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to “disengage” and remove the Jewish-only colonies from the Gaza strip.
Immediately following October 7, Netanyahu launched a genocidal war, disregarding the Palestinian Resistance’s proposal for prisoner’s exchange. His decision to pursue war instead of negotiations was motivated by several factors:
a) Deflect responsibility for the intelligence failure under his watch. b) Evade scrutiny of his role in facilitating external funding to Hamas. c) Execute a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing to reoccupy Gaza.
The strategy to ethnically cleanse Gaza was openly advocated by Israel’s racist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who three months following October 7 called for Palestinians to leave Gaza. The scion of an Ukrainian immigrant repeated the century-old European Zionist myth of blooming the desert⎯a narrative that not only ignores historical and geographical realities but also contradicts his own Old Testament that once described Canaan, the land of the Filastin (Palestine), as the “land of milk and honey,” before the ancient Hebrews migrated from their original homes to Palestine.
Further, and on January 1, 2024, Smotrich’s fellow racist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared in a Knesset speech that Israel should never withdraw from any territory it occupies and explained that the establishment of new Jewish-only colonies in Gaza as “an important thing.” The following day, on January 2, Ben Gvir doubled down, stating that displacing “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza would help pave the way for the creation of the new Jewish-only colonies.
More recently, on Monday, November 25, Smotrich declared to the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank, “We can and must conquer the Gaza Strip.” He claimed there is “a unique opportunity” with Donald Trump’s election to halve Gaza’s population—a veiled euphemism for ethnic cleansing. Last Thursday, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir echoed similar calls to “reoccupy the Gaza Strip.”
On the ground inside Gaza, the tools of occupation were more explicit in defining the meaning of Netanyahu’s ostensible mantra: “total victory.” Israeli soldiers posed before an orange banner that read, “Only (Jewish-only) settlement (in Gaza) would be considered victory!” Notably, the orange color harkens back to the banners used by the settler movement in 2005 to protest Sharon’s decision to evacuate the Jewish-only colonies from Gaza.
On November 29, Ajith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, stated after visiting Gaza that the “U.N. had been unable to deliver any aid to northern Gaza” due to “repeated impediments or outright rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities.”
Regarding the genocide by terror, U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk reported that residents of northern Gaza are subjected to “non-stop” bombing. Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands have been ordered to evacuate, likely to make way for new Jewish-only settlements.
As part of the forced depopulation of Gaza’s northern region—the most fertile land in the strip—Israel is constructing a topographic barrier to isolate this area from the rest of Gaza. Beginning in early October, Israel carried out extensive controlled explosions, demolishing multi-story buildings to clear a path for a 5.6-mile road cutting across the strip. This road divides Gaza City from the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has characterized this widespread forced displacement as part of an official government policy amounting to “crimes against humanity.”
On November 30, former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon confirmed HRW findings, stating that Netanyahu and “far-right” (racist) elements are waging a war of “occupation, annexation, and ethnic cleansing.” He added, “There is no Beit Lahia, there is no Beit Hanoun.”
The live-documented ethnic cleansing in Gaza, much like in 1948, alongside the expansion of Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank, underscores the true undeclared objectives in Israel’s ostensible “total victory.” In this contest, Netanyahu’s deliberate undermining of U.S.-led negotiations for prisoner’s swap exemplifies his quintessential diabolical persona: exploiting the predicament of his own Israeli captives to further his cynical undeclared agenda of slaughtering the “Amalek,” and ethnically cleansing Gaza to pave the way for new Jewish-only colonies.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 1, 2024. (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow,” said the deputy director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
A top official at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that food availability across Gaza has reached “an all-time low” under Israel’s suffocating blockade, which has heavily restricted the entrance of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and plunged the enclave into famine.
“Food supply has sharply deteriorated,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt. “The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow. Food, medicine, and fuel are self-evident priorities, but we must also prioritize the ability to grow food locally where it is needed most to ensure survival.”
Bechdol’s grim assessment came weeks after the Biden administration pressuredIsrael to improve conditions on the ground in Gaza, which has been utterly devastated by more than a year of bombing.
Aid organizations say that far from improving, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has only gotten worse since the Biden administration threatened to cut off the supply of U.S. weapons to Israel. Last month, the U.S. effectively dropped its pressure campaign by concluding that Israel was not violating international law by blocking American humanitarian assistance.
Most of Gaza’s population is currently experiencing “high levels of food insecurity,” according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) figures, and the “risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip.”
“The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop.”
In addition to obstructing aid deliveries, Israeli forces have decimated Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure and cropland, repeatedly attacked aid workers, and facilitated the looting of humanitarian supplies, fueling desperation among Gaza’s starving population. Last week, as The Associated Pressreported, “two children and a woman were crushed to death… as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory.”
Amina Mohammed, the U.N.’s deputy secretary-general, said at the Cairo conference on Monday that “conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are appalling and apocalyptic,” with malnutrition running “rampant” and famine “imminent.”
“In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized due to acute malnutrition—nearly double the cases in the first half of the year,” Mohammed said. “In the face of the gigantic needs, humanitarian aid is—outrageously—being blocked. This flies in the face of the clear requirements under international humanitarian law to respect and to protect civilians and to ensure their essential needs are met.”
“It’s past time for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” she added. “The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
