Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza

Protesters block a main road to show support for the hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly October 7 attack, in Tel Aviv, Israel September 1, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 02 September 2024
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Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza

  • Protesters demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home
  • Many blame Netanyahu for failing to reach a ceasefire during nearly 11 months of war with negotiations dragging on 

JERUSALEM: Grieving and angry Israelis surged into the streets Sunday night after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza, chanting “Now! Now!” as they demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.
Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, also pressured the government by calling a general strike for Monday — the first since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the war. The strike aims to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country’s main airport.
Tens of thousands of Israelis were expected to protest. Many blame Netanyahu for failing to reach a ceasefire during nearly 11 months of war. Negotiations have dragged on for months. Israel’s army has acknowledged the difficulty of rescuing dozens of remaining hostages and said a deal is the only way to bring a large-scale return.
“I’m crying the cry of humanity,” said one protester who gave his name as Amos as thousands, some of them weeping, gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem.
The military said all six hostages were killed shortly before Israeli forces arrived. Netanyahu blamed the Hamas militant group for the stalled negotiations, saying “whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal.”

 

Militants seized Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, and four other hostages at a music festival in southern Israel. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him alive, sparking new protests in Israel.
The army identified the other dead hostages as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Alexander Lobanov, 33; also taken from the festival. The sixth, Carmel Gat, 40, was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri.
The army said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, around a kilometer (half a mile) from where another hostage was rescued alive last week.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said Israeli forces found the bodies several dozen meters (yards) underground as “ongoing combat” was underway, but that there was no firefight in the tunnel itself. He said there was no doubt Hamas had killed them.
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the hostages would still be alive if Israel had accepted a US-backed ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it had agreed to in July.
Funerals began for the hostages, with more outrage. Sarusi’s body was wrapped in an Israeli flag. “You were abandoned on and on, daily, hour after hour, 331 days,” his mother, Nira, said. “You and so many beautiful and pure souls. Enough. No more.”
Hostages’ families urge a ‘complete halt of the country’
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed.
Critics have accused him of putting his personal interests over those of the hostages. The war’s end likely will lead to an investigation into his government’s failures in the Oct. 7 attacks, the government’s collapse and early elections.
“I think this is an earthquake. This isn’t just one more step in the war,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow in the International Security Program at Chatham House, shortly before Sunday’s protests began.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu got into a shouting match at a security Cabinet meeting Thursday with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who accused him of prioritizing control of a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border — a major sticking point in the talks — over the lives of the hostages.
An Israeli official confirmed the report and said three of the hostages — Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi and Gat — had been slated to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July. The official was not authorized to brief media about the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“In the name of the state of Israel, I hold their families close to my heart and ask forgiveness,” Gallant said Sunday.
A forum of hostage families has demanded a “complete halt of the country” to push for a ceasefire and hostage release. “Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses, those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive,” it said in a statement.
Even a mass outpouring of anger would not immediately threaten Netanyahu or his far right government. He still controls a majority in parliament. But he has caved in to public pressure before. Mass protests led him to cancel the dismissal of his defense minister last year, and a general strike last year helped lead to a delay in his controversial judicial overhaul.
A family’s high-profile campaign
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, US-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with US President Joe Biden and Pope Francis and on Aug. 21, they addressed the Democratic National Convention — after sustained applause and chants of “bring him home.”
His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the ovation and touched her chest, said “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Biden on Sunday said he was “devastated and outraged.” The White House said he spoke with Goldberg-Polin’s parents and offered condolences.
Some 250 hostages were taken on Oct. 7. Israel now believes 101 remain in captivity, including 35 who are thought to be dead. More than 100 were freed during a ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Eight have been rescued by Israeli forces. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were militants. It has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times, and plunged the besieged territory into a humanitarian catastrophe.


Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

  • Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
  • The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention
JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.

UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

Updated 11 min 2 sec ago
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UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

  • Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country 
  • Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza

LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.

Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.

“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”

She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.

“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.

US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.

The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.

The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.

The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.


Monitor raises toll in Israel strikes on Syria’s Palmyra to 92

Updated 16 min 23 sec ago
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Monitor raises toll in Israel strikes on Syria’s Palmyra to 92

  • Wednesday’s Israeli attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups
  • Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country

BEIRUT: A Syria war monitor said on Friday that Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra this week killed 92 pro-Iran fighters, after a United Nations representative said they were likely the deadliest to date.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday’s attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups that also involved commanders from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The toll has risen to “92 dead: 61 Syrian pro-Iran fighters,” 11 of them working for Hezbollah, “and 27 foreign nationals mostly from Al-Nujaba, plus four from Hezbollah,” the Observatory said.
The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had previously reported 82 dead, while the Syria defense ministry on Wednesday said 36 people were killed.
The UN deputy special envoy to Syria, Najat Rochdi, told the Security Council on Thursday that the raid was “likely the deadliest Israeli strike in Syria to date.”
The Observatory said the strikes also targeted “a weapons depot near the industrial area” in Palmyra, a modern city adjacent to globally renowned Greco-Roman ruins.
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since almost a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September.


Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel

Updated 22 November 2024
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Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel

  • Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami calls the ICC warrant ‘a welcome move’
  • Salami adds it is a ‘great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements’

TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday described the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense minister as the “end and political death” of Israel, in a speech.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami said in the speech aired on state TV.
In the first official reaction by Iran, Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” both supported by the Islamic republic.
Israel and its allies criticized the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant on Thursday for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The move drew angry reactions from Netanyahu, who denounced it as antisemitic and from Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, but was welcomed by rights groups including Amnesty International.
The ICC’s move theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu, as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.
The court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged the body’s members to act on the warrants, and for non-members to work together in “upholding international law.”


Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid

Updated 22 November 2024
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Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid

  • Israeli military: Slain militants had ‘led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim’

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Friday it had “eliminated” five Hamas militants, including two commanders, in an overnight raid in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
In a statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists, including a Nukhba (commando) company commander and an additional company commander who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre” that sparked the Gaza war last year, adding that the slain militants had “led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim,” a kibbutz in southern Israel.