Compilation of news reports – IAK staff 

‘3,000 operatives’: Hamas regains capabilities in northern Gaza – report

Jerusalem Post reports:

Hamas has managed to regain some of its capabilities in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a Monday Channel 12 report, citing a security source.

The report specified that Hamas had enlisted some 3,000 new operatives into its ranks in that area of Gaza.

Additionally, the resistance group reportedly provided them with weapons, ammunition, and payment.

According to the Channel 12 report, while some Israeli forces remain in northern Gaza, the absence of large troop deployments has allowed Hamas to operate more freely in that area.

At the beginning of the war with Gaza, Israeli forces invaded northern Gaza, reportedly destroying much of the Hamas infrastructure there.

In mid-July, the IDF ended a re-invasion of northern Gaza to concentrate on the central Gaza Strip.

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Israel to classify West Bank as ‘combat zone’ amid dramatic escalation

Israel Hayom reports:

Recent events have triggered a major policy shift in Israel’s approach to the West Bank, Israel Hayom has learned. Previously designated as a “secondary arena” requiring stable maintenance, the Israeli military now operates under a new paradigm, viewing the West Bank as the second most critical front, immediately after Gaza.

A series of operations across the West Bank are imminent. “The Jenin operation is just the beginning,” security officials emphasize.

Security officials recommend launching extensive operations. One security source described it as “not just mowing the lawn, but uprooting the problem at its source.”

NOTE: In reality, International law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the racist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people, exiled them to Gaza and other locations, and continues to oppress and ethnically cleanse their population.

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Some West Bank updates: Israel continues killing spree

various media outlets report: 

The Israeli aggression, since dawn last Wednesday, on the West Bank until now, has killed at least 32 Palestinians: 19 in Jenin, 6 in Tulkarem, 4 in Tubas, and 3 in Hebron, bringing the number of slain Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, to at least 685.

The total number of injuries in the West Bank and Gaza combined has surpassed 100,000 (94,398 in Gaza, 5,700 in the West Bank) – even as healthcare facilities in both areas remain under siege.

JENIN AREA: Israeli forces today directly targeted four journalists in the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin, as they covered the Israeli aggression in the town.

The occupation forces fired live bullets directly at the vehicle of the two photojournalists while they were trying to reach the location of the other journalists in the village of Kafr Dan.

“We narrowly escaped death,” one of the victims explained. “If we hadn’t sped up a bit in our car, they would have killed us. It was a direct assassination attempt.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian teenage girl and prevented medics from reaching her until she succumbed to her wounds in Kafr Dan town, west of Jenin, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its medics moved the slain child, Lujain Osama Abdul-Rauf Mosleh, 16, to a hospital in Jenin.

TULKARM: A Palestinian minor was killed Tuesday dawn by Israeli occupation forces during the ongoing raid on Tulkarm camp.

Medical and local sources said that Mohammad Kanaan was killed after being shot in the head by the occupation forces’ snipers while he was with his father in one of the camp’s neighborhoods, while his father was shot in the abdomen by the occupation forces.

On Tuesday evening, two Palestinians were killed after the army surrounded a home and fired at it, in the Thannaba Suburb in Tulkarem.

Media sources said that the attack killed two young men inside the home before the soldiers took their corpses to an unknown destination. (More on Tulkarm here.)

HEBRON: After closing the Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslim Palestinian worshippers, the Israeli army allowed thousands of illegal settlers to hold a concert and perform their rituals at the site in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Mosque director Moataz Abu Sneineh said that the Israeli settlers held a concert in the mosque’s courtyards “in a blatant violation of the places of worship and the privacy of Muslims.”

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Unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists arrested by Israel since October 7th

The Committee To Protect Journalists reports: 

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested — often without charge — in what they and their attorneys say is retaliation for their journalism and commentary.

As of September 4, CPJ has documented a total of 54 arrests of journalists in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and in the city of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital, since the war began on October 7, 2023. Israel arrested 51; Palestinian authorities arrested three.

Nineteen of these journalists, including the three held by Palestinian authorities, have since been released, while 35 remain under arrest.

At least 14 of the journalists arrested by Israel are being held under administrative detention, a policy under which a military commander may detain an individual without charge, typically for six months, on the grounds of preventing them from committing a future offense. Detention can be extended an unlimited number of times.

(Editor’s note: These numbers are being updated regularly as more information becomes available. The tally includes all arrests documented by CPJ. As is our global practice, journalists who request anonymity out of concern for their safety are not named in the list below.)

“Since October 7, Israel has been arresting Palestinian journalists in record numbers and using administrative detention to keep them behind bars, thus depriving the region not only of much needed information, but also of Palestinian voices on the conflict,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “If Israel wants to live up to its self-styled reputation of being the only democracy in the Middle East, it needs to release detained Palestinian journalists and stop using military courts to hold them without evidence.”

CPJ ALSO REPORTS: Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging.

In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out their work in Israel and the two Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

These include 54 arrests, as well as numerous assaults, threats and harassment, cyberattacks, and censorship.

(Find details and examples here. Find an up-to-date list of journalists killed here.)

RECOMMENDED READING: CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

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Int’l Criminal Court likely to decide whether to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant ‘over coming days’

Ha’aretz reports:

Justice Ministry officials expect the International Criminal Court (ICC) to decide in the coming days on whether to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but are cautiously optimistic that the court will decide against the warrants.

The officials said the government’s refusal to set up a state commission of inquiry to investigate the events of the war, as recommended by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, along with the fact that Israel has been lagging in its own investigations of alleged war crimes – something that would preempt ICC action under the principle of complementarity – strengthen the likelihood that the court will accept Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for the warrants.

The officials said they expect the court to issue its decision within days, or at most a few weeks.

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US Justice Department files criminal charges against Hamas

Al Jazeera reports: 

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Trump advisor pushes to divert Palestine aid funds for Israeli annexation of West Bank

The Cradle reports:

Former US ambassador to Israel and advisor to Donald Trump, David Friedman, proposed in his new book that Congress should redirect $1 billion allocated for Palestinian aid to support Israeli plans for an annexation of the occupied West Bank.

“Israel will need financial assistance to assert and maintain its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” Friedman wrote in his new book, using the biblical term used by Israel to refer to the West Bank.

Friedman writes in his book, titled One Jewish State: The Last and Best Hope for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, that the US could divert $1 billion in current aid to the Palestinians – which includes funds for Palestinian Authority (PA) security services – to fund the Israeli annexation plan.

Friedman also compares Palestinians living under Israeli occupation to Puerto Ricans, who live on an island considered US territory.

“Palestinians, like Puerto Ricans, will not vote in national elections. Palestinians will be free to enact their own governing documents as long as they do not conflict with those of Israel,” he wrote.

Friedman argues the US should support Israel’s annexation “based first and foremost on biblical prophecies and values”, saying that such a policy “hearkens back to basic Judeo-Christian values of kindness, human dignity, humility and prosperity”.

Friedman said he has not yet shared his idea for funding the annexation with Trump. “I hope to share it with him at the appropriate time.”

NOTE: “Biblical prophecies” do not speak anywhere of a modern Jewish state. Pro-Israel (and in many cases, antisemitic) interpretations of Biblical prophecies have twisted the words of the sacred text to imply that a modern Jewish state is a precursor to the endtimes and the return of Christ.

RECOMMENDED READING: Friedman drove the radical overhaul of US policy on Israel-Palestine and Trump Is Desperate for Miriam Adelson’s Cash. Her Condition: West Bank Annexation

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U.S. Still Talking Up a Hostage Deal, but Privately Despair About Netanyahu

Ha’aretz reports:

The Biden administration continues to insist publicly that it is committed to negotiations on a hostage and cease-fire deal in Gaza Strip, but senior officials in the government are expressing despair and frustration about the state of the talks, especially after Israel’s security cabinet approved a resolution last week opposing withdrawal from the Philadelphi route in the context of an agreement.

The aim of the administration’s public messages, according to one of the officials, was to allow the talks to continue, in the hope that a breakthrough might occur nonetheless. “It has no real connection to reality,” he said.

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Britain is the latest country to shift its position on arms sales to Israel, which has been dependent on international weaponry for an 11-month assault on Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 people.

Here is how different countries have responded to Israel’s war:

Banned or restricted arms sales

• • Britain
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Canada
  • Belgium
  • The Netherlands

No ban on arms sales

• • The US
  • Germany
  • Denmark

(For details on each country listed, go here.)

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There Is No Argument For Supporting Israel That’s Both Logical And Moral

by Caitlyn Johnstone:

It’s wild when you realize that nobody can actually articulate a reason why Israel should be supported that is both logically coherent and morally defensible.

Westerners grow up being indoctrinated with the understanding that this tiny country in the middle east is super duper important and needs to be supported and defended at all cost, but if you examine the reasons given for why this is so as an adult, you find that none of them really hold water.

• “Israel is the only place where Jews can be safe!”
• “The Jews deserve a homeland!”
• “Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east.”
• “I support Israel’s existence but I oppose the mistreatment of Palestinians.”
• “Israel is essential for protecting our interests in the region.”

(Read Caitlyn Johnstone’s rebuttal to each of these statements here.)

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Columbia U students will not be silenced on Palestine

Palestine Chronicle reports:

The students at Columbia University in New York City inaugurated their first day of the fall semester on Tuesday by staging pro-Palestine demonstrations.

This resulted in the arrest of two students by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) outside of Barnard gates, as reported by the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.

The group live-streamed on the social media platform X parts of the protests, stating that the NYPD officers were “extremely aggressive with students, shoving protestors against the barricades”.

The student group stressed that as long as their university remains complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza “there is no business as usual during a genocide.”

“We refuse to live in a world where the mass murder of Palestinians is normal, acceptable, and profitable. Columbia University is complicit in genocide. Their investments in weapons manufacturers & defense contractors, companies such as Lockheed Martin, are fueling the genocide,” the students said on X.

The students also posted photos and footage of the statue of Alma Mater, on the steps of Columbia’s library, soaked in red as a sign of their university’s financial support for Israel and repression of pro-Palestine voices amid genocide, per the group.

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