JERUSALEM: 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.”
Rising death toll
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 Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three senior Hamas leaders.
Ireland, Norway and Spain also recognized a Palestinian state in a coordinated decision on Tuesday, while Slovenia’s parliament is due to vote on such a proposal next week.
Declining global support
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 demoralized 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.
‘We are hated’: Israelis feel isolation over Gaza war
https://arab.news/juuhm
‘We are hated’: Israelis feel isolation over Gaza war
- Israel 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
UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban
OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.
Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.
World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM
OSLO: The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after an hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying late Tuesday that a deal to end the 15-month war was “on the brink.”
“The ceasefire we’re talking about ... came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organizations in Oslo.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of the meeting, said a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now toward a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognized the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honored for signing the Oslo accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.
Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls
DAMASCUS: Families of missing persons have urged Syria’s new authorities to protect evidence of crimes under president Bashar Assad, after outrage over volunteers painting over etchings on walls inside a former jail.
Thousands poured out of prisons after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of tens of thousands of relatives and friends who went missing.
In the chaos following his ouster, with journalists and families rushing to detention centers, official documents have been left unprotected, with some even looted or destroyed.
Rights groups have stressed the urgent need to preserve “evidence of atrocities,” which includes writings left by detainees on the walls of their cells.
But a video appearing to show young volunteers paint over such writings at an unnamed detention center with white paint and adorning its walls with the new Syrian flag, the depiction of a fireplace or broken chains has circulated on social media in recent days, angering activists.
“Painting the walls of security branches is disgraceful, especially before the start of new investigations into human rights violations” there, said Diab Serriya, a co-founder of Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP).
It is “an attempt to destroy the signs of torture or enforced disappearance and hampers efforts to... gather evidence,” he said.
Jomana Hasan Shtiwy, a Syrian held in three different facilities under Assad, often changing cells, said the writings on the walls held invaluable information.
“On the walls are names and telephone numbers to contact relatives and inform them about the fate of their children,” she said on Facebook.
In each new cell, “we would write a memory so that those who followed could remember us,” she said.
A petition appeared on Tuesday calling for the new Syrian authorities to better protect evidence, and give investigating the fate of those forcibly disappeared under Assad “the highest priority.”
It slammed what it called “the insensitive treatment of the sanctity” of former detention centers.
“Some have gone as far as to paint cells, obscuring their features, which for us represents... a great wronging of detainees,” said signatories, including ADMSP.
The president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said last week determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war would be a “huge challenge.”
Mirjana Spoljaric said the ICRC was following 43,000 cases, but that was probably just a fraction of the missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
Iran’s navy unveils its first signals intelligence ship
DUBAI: Iran’s navy received its first signals intelligence ship on Wednesday, semi-official Tasnim news organization reported, a few days after the country’s army took delivery of 1,000 new drones.
The Zagros is a new category of military vessel equipped with electronic sensors and the ability to intercept cyber-operations and conduct intelligence monitoring, Tasnim said.
“The Zagros signals intelligence ship will be the watchful eye of Iran’s navy in the seas and oceans,” Navy Commander Shahram Irani said.
Earlier this month, Iran started two-month-long military exercises which have already included war games in which the elite Revolutionary Guards defended key nuclear installations in Natanz against mock attacks by missiles and drones.
The military drills and procurement come at a time of high tensions with arch-enemy Israel and the United States under incoming US president Donald Trump.
In October, the spokesperson of Iran’s government said the country plans to raise its military budget by around 200 percent to face growing threats.
