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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs meeting as the Israeli Security Cabinet gather to approve a cease-fire agreement and a prisoner swap deal with Hamas, in West Jerusalem on January 17, 2025. [Photo by Koby Gideon (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and expand military operations in the enclave, local media said on Monday evening.
“The die is cast — we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip,” a senior official close to Netanyahu was quoted as saying by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
“There will be operations even in areas where hostages are being held. If the IDF (army) chief of staff doesn’t agree, he should resign.”
Israeli Channel 12 said the decision signals a major shift in Israel’s Gaza strategy, with operations now expected in densely populated areas, including central refugee camps.
The public broadcaster KAN, citing ministers who recently spoke with Netanyahu, said the premier decided to broaden military operations in Gaza despite opposition from the security establishment.
Yedioth Ahronoth claimed that US President Donald Trump had given Netanyahu a “green light” to proceed with the expanded assault.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
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Michael D.Higgins, the Ireland President, on February 11, 2024 in Dublin, Ireland [David Rogers/Getty Images]
Irish President Michael D. Higgins has called on the UN to take urgent action in Gaza, asking Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to invoke powers under Chapter Seven to bypass Security Council gridlock and deliver humanitarian aid, Anadolu reports.
In a video shared by RTE News, he described the crisis as the “incredible, incredible destruction of an entire people.”
“Are we to watch children starving, women dehydrated, or trying to feed their children? So something must happen,” he said.
President Higgins expressed support for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to invoke powers under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter—a mechanism that allows for enforcement action, including the use of force, without Security Council approval if deemed necessary.
“I am personally in favor of the secretary-general of the UN using Chapter Seven procedure, by which, whether or not the Security Council agrees, and even if there’s a blockage, the right exists for the secretary-general to seek to put together an international defense of a corridor,” he said.
Referring to blocked humanitarian aid, Higgins added: “There are 6,000 trucks with enough food for three months, and it has been blocked, and it is outrageous.”
The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
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An Israeli army soldier walks near a main battle tank deployed at a position along the border with the Gaza Strip and southern Israel on July 29, 2025. [Jack GUEZ / AFP/Getty Images]
Pressure to end the war intensified further on Sunday evening, as a large group of former senior security officials launched a campaign calling for the Gaza war to stop immediately.
The group included former heads of key Israeli security bodies from past decades, such as former Chiefs of Staff, police commissioners, and former heads of Shin Bet, Mossad, and Military Intelligence.
They warned that Israel is now “on the verge of defeat”, stressing that the war “could have ended yesterday” and that all hostages in Gaza could have been released in one go.
In a video lasting over three minutes, recorded in recent days during a meeting of those former senior officials, the group presents its arguments for an immediate ceasefire.
In the video, the former military leaders say: “Together, we hold over a thousand years of experience. It is our duty to speak up and say what must be said: we are on the verge of defeat.”
People walk down a street surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip, July 29, 2025
ISRAELI ministers have again exposed how hollow are Western claims to back a two-state solution.
Yet global opinion on Israel’s colonial project has reached a tipping point — and the prospect of real change cannot be dismissed.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir leads settlers in a march through occupied East Jerusalem. En route, he calls for Israel to annex Gaza.
Defence Minister Israel Katz decrees: “We will strengthen our hold and sovereignty over Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount, forever.”
These are not aberrations: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will never tolerate a Palestinian state.
Faced with such extremism, any government serious about a Palestinian state would need to impose tough conditions on Israel: full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza included.
Yet what conditions do they seek to apply?
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain will recognise Palestine unless Israel “takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza.”
Feeble as that is, at least Starmer makes demands of the aggressor, Israel.
Canada’s Mark Carney decided to lecture the people being massacred. Canada would recognise Palestine — subject to democratic reforms, including elections in which (very democratically) Hamas would be banned.
France’s Emmanuel Macron repeated that an independent Palestine would need to be demilitarised — as if Palestine threatens the existence of Israel, rather than the other way around.
The coloniser’s mindset. Palestine can be “independent,” but only if it chooses leaders we like, and has no means of defending itself.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Mr Graham Blewitt who was a former prosecutor for the International War Crimes Tribunal in Sydney on 4 December 2005. [Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images]
A former deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said the amount of evidence pointing to genocide in Gaza is overwhelming and likened the situation to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Anadolu reports.
Graham Blewitt, who helped prosecute war crimes in the Balkans and Nazi crimes in Australia, said in a recent interview with Australian broadcaster SBS News that if he were working in the International Criminal Court today, he would have “no hesitation in bringing an indictment against the Israeli leaders for genocide.”
Blewitt said the mass killings in Srebrenica, where over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered and buried in 570 sites — including 77 mass graves — was once deemed a “clear-cut genocide” due to the perpetrators’ intent to destroy a targeted group in whole or in part.
He said the same standard may apply to Gaza.
“There’s no direct evidence apart from comments made by various Israeli leaders from time to time suggesting that they just want to wipe the Palestinians from the face of the Earth,” he said.
Blewitt added that the Israeli air campaign has shown a disturbing lack of proportionality.
“They’ll bomb a building and say they’re after a particular Hamas leader and not worry about the 30, 40, 50, 100 people in close proximity who are killed or injured as a result of that strike,” he said.
Unlike in the 1990s, today’s digital age has created a vast archive of visual documentation.
“Now anyone with a phone can record what’s happening, and there’s no end of evidence for those investigating what’s happening in Gaza,” he said.
However, he also warned that investigators currently lack access to Gaza to collect physical evidence or inspect crime scenes on the ground.
– Interference with justice
Blewitt also raised concerns over global political efforts to shield Israeli leaders from prosecution. He criticized US President Donald Trump’s February executive order that sanctioned ICC staff after the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He described it as “an appalling situation” that undermines international justice and could lead some political leaders to be held in contempt.
Blewitt said the situation has left him deeply frustrated.
“I used to be quite optimistic about the capacity of international institutions to hold war criminals accountable,” he said. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
His remarks come as the International Court of Justice continues to examine a case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The case has placed Israel’s conduct under intensifying legal scrutiny.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
People walk down a street surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip, July 29, 2025
