Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Palestinian medics and rescue teams recovered six more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
On Thursday evening, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians and injured many others east of Gaza City.
Another Palestinian prisoner from Gaza dies in Israeli detention
RELATED: Israel to deploy 3,000 additional policemen in East Jerusalem ahead of 1st Friday prayer in Ramadan
Israel not “withholding” aid to Gaza, but rather protecting aid workers, Trump admin says
The situation on the ground in Gaza isn’t safe enough for Israel to allow aid trucks in – and that’s why it has stopped doing so, the new US State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.
Amnesty has described the Israeli decision as a war crime.
Asked about the Trump administration’s position on Israel’s withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce – holding her first briefing – indicated that it’s Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered.
NOTE: This contradicts Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own explanation of the reason for cutting off aid:
US, Israel could take joint military action against Hamas if negotiations fail, Witkoff says
Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, told reporters on Thursday that the United States and Israel could take joint military action against Hamas if negotiations with the [resistance] group fail.
Speaking with journalists outside the White House, Witkoff was asked if there was a deadline to advance a deal to release more hostages before Israel resumes combat operations in the Gaza Strip.
“There definitely is such a date, but I’m not at liberty to discuss what that is,” Witkoff said. “It’s unclear exactly what’s going to happen. I think there’s going to be some action taken. It could be jointly with the Israelis.”
In a follow-up question, Witkoff said that any action would “principally come from the Israelis” but with “very, very strong physical and emotional support from the United States.”
President Trump responded ambiguously when asked about a potential joint U.S.-Israeli strike.
“You’re gonna find out,” Trump said. “Somebody’s gonna have to get a lot rougher than they’re getting.”
Gaza authorities demand entry of personal protective equipment to dismantle unexploded Israeli munitions
As Israel widens war in West Bank, settlers see their influence pay off: Washington Post
Israeli officials say their offensive in the occupied West Bank — the largest such military operation there in decades — is needed to roll back a growing militant presence in the cities of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus, and these officials point to an uptick in shootings, stabbings and a suspected bomb attack on empty buses outside Tel Aviv last month as evidence of a terrorist threat.
But many Palestinians and some Israeli analysts say that the scale and intensity of the operation, which humanitarian groups say has displaced nearly 40,000 Palestinian residents in two months, are vastly out of proportion to the actual threat. And in its timing, tactics and public promotion, these observers see a campaign driven not just by security concerns but also by the political and ideological motivations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s increasingly powerful far right.
“It’s a mix between military needs, real intelligence and the great political motivations of the settlers,” said Ilan Paz, a retired Israeli general and a former head of the Civil Administration in the West Bank, the Israeli governing body that operates in that Palestinian territory.
“The question is not whether we have reason to attack [resistance] activity in the West Bank. The question is how,” Paz added. “We see refugee camps emptied of Palestinians. We see military operations led by armored bulldozers. We see the Israeli government [undermining] the Palestinian Authority. That is because of Netanyahu’s political issues, and the result we will see will be very similar to Gaza.”
In February, cabinet minister and leader in the far-right settler movement Bezalel Smotrich warned Palestinians in the West Bank that if they carry out [resistance activities], “their fate will be the same as the fate of Gaza.” He told a news conference that Tulkarm, Jenin and other West Bank cities would look like towns and refugee camps in Gaza that have been almost entirely leveled by Israeli forces. “They too will be uninhabitable ruins. Their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries.”
Other settler leaders, who seek to harden Israel’s policy toward the West Bank and ultimately secure its annexation by Israel, have also applauded the military campaign as a long-overdue product of their lobbying. Israel Ganz, who chairs the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, said he had been pressuring Netanyahu and Smotrich for more than a year to apply the same tactics that the IDF has used in Gaza to the West Bank (continue reading here).
TO SEE WHAT ISRAEL’S INCURSIONS ARE DOING TO THE WEST BANK, READ: Israeli Army Operations Are Making West Bank Refugee Camps Unlivable
ALSO READ: State of Siege: Israel is conducting its largest mass expulsion campaign in the West Bank since 1967
Less Than Half in U.S. Now Sympathetic Toward Israelis: Gallup
Although Americans remain more likely to say their sympathies in the Middle East situation are with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians, the 46% expressing support for Israel is the lowest in 25 years of Gallup’s annual tracking of this measure on its World Affairs survey. The previous 51% low point in this trend of Americans’ sympathy for Israelis was recorded both last year and in 2001.
At the same time, the 33% of U.S. adults who now say they sympathize with the Palestinians is up six percentage points from last year and the highest reading by two points.
The latest reading is from a Gallup poll conducted Feb. 3-16, during which the temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas that started in mid-January continued.
Republicans broadly sympathize with the Israelis (75%) over the Palestinians (10%), while Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians over the Israelis by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio (59% vs. 21%). Independents’ sympathies are similar to the national averages.
Republicans and independents have consistently backed the Israelis since 2001, though independents’ support for the Israelis is now at its lowest in World Affairs surveys by one point. Democrats also sided with the Israelis until 2022, when roughly equal shares said they sympathized with each side. Since then, Democrats have supported the Palestinians.
Bottom line, Americans’ sympathies with the Israelis continue to decline (continue reading here).
RELATED: US State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas”
Trump tells Hamas, ‘Only sick, twisted people keep bodies.’ Does he know that Israel has hundreds of Palestinians’ bodies?
US President Donald Trump threatened the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, on Wednesday with “severe consequences” if it continues to hold Israeli captives and the bodies of dead hostages. “Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted!” said Trump on his social media platform.
“Shalom Hamas means Hello or Goodbye – You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” said Trump.
However, the US president ignored the fact that Israel is withholding the bodies of at least 665 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army, including some killed decades ago. According to Palestinian NGO the National Campaign to Retrieve Martyrs’ Bodies, Israel keeps the bodies in the so-called “Cemeteries of Numbers” and mortuaries.
These cemeteries have graves with each bearing a metal plate with a number instead of the deceased’s name. The numbers correspond to individual files kept secretly by the Israeli security authorities.
FURTHER READING ABOUT THE CEMETERIES OF NUMBERS: Dying to leave Gaza – and to get back in
In open letter, Hamas official asks Trump to meet with freed Palestinian prisoners
An open letter published by a senior Hamas official on Thursday is asking US President Donald Trump to meet with freed Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention.
Trump met with several former Israeli captives at the White House on Wednesday, and reportedly heard stories so enraging about their experience, that he then took to social media and threatened to kill all residents of Gaza if the remaining Israeli captives were not released.
“Mr President: Why not consider meeting freed Palestinian prisoners as well?” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, wrote.
“Over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners are languishing in Israeli occupation prisons across 23 detention centers under dire conditions, characterized by the deprivation of basic rights, denial of family visits, and ongoing psychological and physical torture,” Naim said. “Among these prisoners are approximately 5,000 who are ill and denied even the most basic healthcare services, 21 women, more than 365 children, and 726 individuals who have spent over 20 years of their lives in captivity.”
Naim also points out that Israeli authorities are holding the remains of 665 deceased Palestinians, given Trump’s insistence that Hamas is “sick and twisted” for holding onto the remains of dead Israeli captives.
“This count does not include the remains of martyrs from Gaza since the beginning of the genocidal war, for which accurate information is lacking, though Hebrew sources indicate that over 1,500 bodies of Palestinian martyrs from Gaza are being held at the ‘Sde Teiman’ concentration camp in southern occupied Palestine,” Naim wrote.
“We invite President Trump to show the same level of respect to freed Palestinian political prisoners and allocate the time to meet and listen to their stories.”
Using AI, Trump moves to reverse student visas for pro-Palestinian demonstrators
US President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps to reverse the student visas of those who have participated in demonstrations in support of Palestinians, including the use of artificial intelligence.
The move comes as colleges in New York are seeing a wave of pro-Palestinian protests, which are being met with severe crackdowns by university administrators, including academic expulsions, suspensions, and arrests by city police.
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Reports have already emerged of students being impacted by the policy, which became one of Trump’s top priorities upon taking office for a second term.
On Wednesday, Reuters and other news outlets reported that the State Department will use artificial intelligence to reverse student visas of those deems to be “supporters of Hamas”.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said the reported developments “signal an alarming erosion of constitutionally protected free speech and privacy rights” (continue reading here).
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 6, 2025 (ongoing count):
- At least 49,378 Palestinians killed, 119,554 injured – including:
- at least 48,446 killed in Gaza (~14,550 children)
- at least 932 killed in the West Bank (~186 children)
- at least 111,852 injured in Gaza
- at least 7,702 injured in the West Bank
WAR STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 (Hamas attack) – JANUARY 22, 2025 (Ceasefire):
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: at least 48,143 – including at least 47,283 in Gaza (~20,600 children), and 916 in the West Bank (~183 children). Palestinian injuries: at least 118,472 – including at least 111,629 in Gaza, and 7,000 in the West Bank.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: ~1,616 (or 1,590) – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 436 (or 405) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- Israeli forces issue administrative detention order against youngest Palestinian child on record
- Class action lawsuit against California Congress members over Gaza genocide goes international
- Israel threatens a second Nakba, yet denies the first ever happened
- As Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel
- The Oscar-winner Israel partisans blocked Americans from seeing
- BBC & Guardian Editors Held Private Meetings With Israeli General
- Israel’s bombing of Gaza caused untold environmental damage − can it recover?
- Netanyahu only ever saw the hostages as his path back to genocide
- Hamas explained why it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023
- Palestinian Prisoners: Harrowing Reports Of Systemic Torture – 2 articles
- A brief history of Israel’s theft and trafficking of Palestinian organs
- The Last Thing Gaza Needs Is Another Blackwater
- Remembering Aaron Bushnell
- Campus Police Are Using Israeli Spy Tech to Crack Down on Student Protest
- ‘Battle For The Truth’: Pro-Israel Bias Inside UK Newsrooms Revealed
- Israeli Doctors Must Condemn the Inhumane Treatment of Hospitalized Palestinian Detainees
- Did Israel round up women and children after 7 October as bargaining chips?
- Gaza’s lost embryos: Dreams of parenthood shattered for thousands in the wake of genocide after Israel destroys IVF centers
- BBC slammed for pulling film that ‘humanized Palestinian children’
