Media Report 2025.05.07
As food supplies in Gaza run out, people queue for hours at soup kitchen
ABC | Eric Tlozek and ABC staff in Gaza | 6 May 2025
Aid groups say people will soon die from hunger as Israel’s blockade of food and other aid to Gaza extends into its third month.
Israel stopped allowing any supplies, including food and medicine, into Gaza on March 2 in a bid to pressure the militant group Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages.
Now, community kitchens that have been feeding hundreds of thousands of Gazans are about to close because they have run out of supplies.
“Of course, [then] we will die of starvation,” Gazan mother Karima Suliman Subhi Abu Qmen told the ABC.
“We rely only on God and the soup kitchen.”
Ms Abu Qmen is one of hundreds of Gazans who have been queuing daily at the soup kitchen in Mughraqa in central Gaza.
She and the other families get one small pot of food each, per day.
“We are a family of five, so it’s not enough food. It’s just one pot, and they don’t give any more,” she said.
“My children go to sleep hungry. They cry until they fall asleep.”
Tayseer Alaideh, a father of four, also queues each morning.
“Our lives depend on the soup kitchen. I am here every day from the morning till midday, because there is no money to buy anything from the market,” he said.
Tonnes of food kept outside Gaza
The soup kitchens became even more critical last month when the World Food Program (WFP) closed its bakeries due to a lack of flour.
But even these lifelines are about to close because they too have run out of food.
Most of the aid organisations that have been feeding Gazans said they no longer have any supplies.
“There is no food,” Ruth James, Oxfam’s regional humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, told the ABC.
“The WFP has completely run out of food supplies. Similarly, Oxfam ran out of food over a month ago from our warehouses. We have not been able to bring in any humanitarian aid whatsoever … since the 1st of March.
“We actually have over 7,000 food parcels stuck in a warehouse in Jordan that we are desperate to bring into Gaza and we’re not able to because of the Israeli-imposed blockade, which has resulted in the complete closure of all access points into Gaza and is an extremely brutal form of collective punishment that Israel is unleashing on the population of Gaza.”
The WFP said there are 116,000 tonnes of food sitting just outside Gaza, enough to feed the population for four months, if Israel allowed it in.
It said food prices in Gaza have increased by up to 1,400 per cent since the ceasefire ended.
The United Nations is begging the Israeli authorities and “those who can still reason with them” to lift the blockade immediately.
“International law is unequivocal: As the occupying power, Israel must allow humanitarian support in. Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip,” Tom Fletcher, the under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief coordinator said in a statement.
“Blocking aid starves civilians. It leaves them without basic medical support. It strips them of dignity and hope. It inflicts a cruel collective punishment. Blocking aid kills.”
Israel says it is withholding aid to force hostage release
The Israeli government has previously alleged aid is being withheld and exploited by the militant group Hamas.
It denies it has an obligation as the occupying power under international law to provide food for Gazans.
“Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza,” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a social media post on April 23.
“According to Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a side is not obliged to allow in aid if it is ‘likely to assist the military or economic efforts of the enemy’. Hamas hijacked the humanitarian aid to rebuild its terror machine.”
But Israel’s government has also openly said it is withholding aid to pressure Hamas to release the 59 hostages who remain in Gaza.
The UN and aid groups said that is illegal.
The UK, France and Germany have collectively accused Israel of politicising aid.
“It is a collective punishment. It is illegal under international humanitarian law,” Ms James said.
“We believe that the scale and severity of breaches of international humanitarian law that Israel is carrying out inside of Gaza, you know, could constitute war crimes. And we believe that there is a risk of genocide being carried out.”
Israel’s defence minister has previously stated the blockade is compliant with international law and the Israeli government has long said it is acting in self-defence, not committing genocide.
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How Trump’s hopes of peace in Gaza have faded away
Sydney Morning Herald / NY Times | Michael Crowley | 7 May 2025
When Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in early April, a reporter re minded the US president that his 2024 campaign promise to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza remained unfulfilled.
Israel had recently broken a tenuous ceasefire in its 18-month war with Hamas and renewed its bombardment of Gaza. But Trump professed optimism.
“I’d like to see the war stop,” he replied. “And I think the war will stop at some point that won’t be in the too-distant future.”
One month later, prospects for peace in Gaza have dimmed even further. Netanyahu yesterday warned of an “intensive” Israeli escalation in the Palestinian enclave after his security cabinet approved plans to call up tens of thousands of reservists for a fresh assault.
Israeli hawks insist that only force can pressure Hamas into finally releasing the more than 20 hostages it still holds captive and end the conflict. But many analysts say a major Israeli escalation could kill any hope left for peace.
The question now is how Trump will react. Analysts said that, after an early flurry of diplomacy to free the hostages and reach a long-term settlement, the president and his senior officials had grown distracted from the conflict. That has amounted to something of a free hand for Netanyahu, who appears pre pared to use it.
“In the beginning of the [Trump] administration, all the promise was on Gaza,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East specialist in the Obama and Biden administrations. “But when the ceasefire fell apart, Trump basically gave the Israelis the green light to do whatever they wanted. My sense is he’s not that involved,” added Goldenberg, who is now a senior vice president at J Street, a centre-left Jewish political advocacy group. “He kind of got bored.”
Trump plans to travel to the Middle East next week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A violent escalation in Gaza would be frustrating for him, a reminder that he has failed to deliver the peace he promised.
Yet, it is possible that Trump has lost patience and welcomes talk in Israel of inflicting a final, crushing blow against Hamas in what Netanyahu said his military officials told him would be “the concluding moves” of the war. Trump may also have a high tolerance for Israel’s use of heavy force. He has warned Hamas that “all hell” will break loose if the group does not re lease the remaining hostages.
Michael Makovsky, president and chief executive of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, agreed that Trump was less engaged with Israel on the subject of Gaza than the Biden administration.
Then president Joe Biden and his top officials spent a vast amount of time after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks trying to manage Israel’s Gaza campaign. Their goal was to limit civilian suffering in Gaza and save Israel from international condemnation, even if critics called them far too tolerant of Israel’s use of force.
Trump has shown flashes of concern for Gaza’s population, and said yesterday that he would help Palestinians in Gaza “get some food” amid an Israeli blockade. But his attention to the conflict has been sporadic.
“It’s like night and day with the Biden administration, which was trying to micromanage Israel’s operations,” Makovsky said. Israeli officials were not “getting phone calls”, he said. “I don’t think they’re being pressed about how many aid trucks are coming in.”
Axios reported that Israel would launch a new ground operation in Gaza if a deal with Hamas were not reached by the time Trump returned from his trip to the region. Makovsky, who recently attended meetings with senior Israeli officials, said that report matched his understanding.
When it came to the Middle East, Makovsky added, Trump had been more focused on nascent diplomacy aimed at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
In a statement, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said Trump remained “committed to securing the immediate release of hostages and an end to Hamas rule in Gaza”. He added that “Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict and the resumption of hostilities”.
One sign of the shifting focus is the portfolio of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. In the early days of Trump’s presidency, Witkoff threw himself into Israel Hamas diplomacy in pursuit of extending a temporary ceasefire agreement reached in January.
But Witkoff has since become a kind of roving su per-envoy who juggles many missions. The former real estate developer and long-time Trump friend has also taken on the Iran file and has met Russian President Vladimir Putin four times to discuss Ukraine.
There is little to suggest that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stepped in. Rubio, to whom Trump last week also gave the job of national security adviser, has yet to visit Israel.
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Stand up for Gaza
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 7 May 2025
Like your correspondent Therese Curtis, I want the re-elected government to be more nuanced about their stand on Gaza (Letters, May 6).
An excellent starting point would be to ban all Australian politicians from accepting the largesse of pro-Israel lobby groups on the all-expenses-paid propaganda tours to Israel.
Instead, they could educate themselves by firstly reading the challenging Balcony Over Jerusalem, penned by our own esteemed journalist John Lyons about his six years living and working in the Middle East. Then watch the 2025 Oscar winner of the best documentary feature No Other Land. These resources will require politicians to critically examine the history of the Israeli state and the consequences of their policies on the Palestinian people.
Rhonda Seymour, Castle Hill
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‘River to the sea’ call at heart of court battle
The Australian | James Dowling | 7 May 2025
A racial discrimination case against former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis will provide legal judgment on whether the phrase “from the river to the sea” implies Israel has no right to exist, and if criticism of the state of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto launched a Federal Court case against Kostakidis in April for reposting a speech by now-deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Mr Cassuto first took his complaint Human Rights Commission in July last year. He said he was “considering options” in January when the pair failed to reach agreement over remediation in the HRC. At the same time Kostakidis made an online apology without admission, saying she accepted “that some of (Nasrallah’s) comments may be seen as anti-Semitic but that is not a barrier to reporting them”.
In legal documents provided to The Australian by the Federal Court, Mr Cassuto – an Australian-Israeli dual citizen – argued Kostakidis could not claim she shared the post in her capacity as a journalist, and if she had shared the speech for reporting purposes “she ought to have disavowed the contents of the video and made clear that she did not endorse those views”.
Her post from January last year was paired with the caption “The Israeli govt getting some of its own medicine.”
In the video, Nasrallah urged Israeli dual citizens to flee the Middle East, saying they have no “future … from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea”. “Here, it’s going to be very difficult for you if you want to be secure, if you want to feel secure. (If) you have an American passport, go back to the United States. (If) you have a British passport, go back to the UK,” Nasrallah said.
In his statement of claim, Mr Cassuto – represented by Arnold Bloch Leibler – argues the video’s contents are hateful towards Israelis and Jewish Australians by implying they are “not indigenous to Israel and ought ‘go back’ to other places”.
It constitutes anti-Semitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition which Australia abides by, he argues, “because it denies the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and justifies the harming of Jews”.
A letter to Kostakidis by ABL partner Raphael Leibler argues her post conveys four central messages: “Jewish Israelis deserve to be, and may soon be, eliminated or ethnically cleansed”; “There is no future for Jews in Israel”; “Jews are unsafe in Israel”; and “Jews are not indigenous to Israel and should return to their purported countries of origin.”
“As the face of SBS for many years, you were entrusted by Australians nationwide as a symbol of truth and integrity,” Mr Leibler wrote. “Since 7 October, you have regrettably misused your considerable profile to spread hateful and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Your public campaign of vilification has caused harm to Mr Cassuto and to members of Jewish and Israeli communities in Australia.”
Also cited by Mr Cassuto were 61 tweets by Kostakidis. Across these tweets she writes and shares messages suggesting there is a “Nazi-Zionist alliance”, that Mossad had prior knowledge of 9/11 and did not intervene, and that convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad “honeypot”.
Mr Cassuto is seeking an apology from Kostakidis, the reimbursement of legal costs and acknowledgment that she breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to publicly offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or group based on their race, nationality or ethnicity.
In making her apology last January, Kostakidis said the complaint had incited “a number of highly defamatory and gratuitous comments”. She has fundraised her defence and will be represented by XD Law & Advocacy, a mixed law and media firm once partnered by former senator Nick Xenophon. “The Australian Zionist Federation is weaponising Australian law in an attempt to curb criticism of Israel for its acts of genocide. I won’t be intimidated by them in the face of the slaughter of tens of thousands of children, hundreds of doctors, nurses, journalists and other civilians,” Kostakidis said in a statement.
“Imagine a situation where we can criticise our own government’s policies and actions but not those of another state, depending on how powerful and cashed up their lobby groups are.
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Israeli plan to occupy Gaza, clear population
The Australian / Wall Street Journal | Carrie Keller-Lynn & Feliz Solomon | 7 May 2025
A senior Hamas official said Tuesday the group was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel after Israel’s security cabinet approved a new ground operation to occupy territory in the Gaza Strip
It marks a strategic shift for Israel that would entail moving most of Gaza’s population to an area cleared of militants and taking control of aid distribution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would retain a presence in areas it seizes in Gaza and would rely on the tens of thousands of reservists the military would call up as part of the offensive.
“One thing will be clear – they’re not going in and out,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video posted to his X account on Monday (local time), suggesting Israeli troops would not quickly withdraw from cleared areas as they did in the first ground operation after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.
The Prime Minister’s comments appeared to clarify an earlier statement from an Israeli official saying the war plan approved on Monday includes “conquering the Strip and holding the territory”. The official didn’t clarify whether the occupation would include all of the enclave or just key areas, or how long Israeli troops would remain.
In response, Basem Naim, a Hamas political bureau member and former Gaza health minister, said: “There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip.”
France’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Paris “very strongly” condemned Israel’s new military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s military operation comes after the appointment of a new military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who took over in March.
“He understands that in order to really eradicate Hamas, you need to take over the whole Gaza Strip,” said Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defence and Security Forum think tank, which has close relations with Israel’s government.
Mr Zamir warned ministers in recent days that Israel “could lose” the hostages in Gaza if it launched a major operation, the country’s Channel 13 TV reports
Terrorists in Gaza are holding 59 hostages, including at least 35 who have been confirmed dead.
“In a plan for a full-scale manoeuvre, we won’t necessarily reach the hostages,” the network quoted Mr Zamir as saying in a meeting. “Keep in mind that we could lose them.”
Israel has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Hamas since the truce lapsed. It started with the blockade on all aid and commercial goods, resuming aerial bombardment and limited ground operations later in the month.
The new offensive will begin gradually over the next two weeks in order to pressure the US-designated terrorist group to accede to Israeli terms in a ceasefire for a hostage release deal before President Donald Trump’s expected Middle East visit in mid-May.
Mr Trump has repeatedly warned Hamas it would face a resumption of violence if the group didn’t release all remaining hostages. “Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict, and for the resumption of hostilities,” National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement.
The new offensive breaks with the strategy Israel’s military pursued in its initial ground operation, when it raided Hamas strongholds and then retreated, allowing Hamas to reinfiltrate areas and rebuild. Mr Zamir has advocated a more aggressive approach to destroying Hamas. “He understands that in order to really eradicate Hamas, you need to take over the whole Gaza Strip,” Mr Avivi said.
As part of the war plan, Israel’s cabinet also approved a call-up of thousands of reservists to aid operations in Gaza, officials said. They said the pool of mobilised reservists would increase over time and could reach tens of thousands.
Israeli military chief spokesman Effie Defrin said the plan would require moving most of Gaza’s population to an area it said would be cleared of militants. Aid groups have routinely cautioned against further displacing Gaza’s civilians, many of whom are living in temporary shelters and have had to move several times.
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Rethink ends futile game of whack-a-mole with Hamas
The Australian / The Times |Samer Al-Atrush | 7 May 2025
During the first phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, an Arab official close to the negotiations said it would probably reach its second phase but not the third: Israel ending the war in Gaza and withdrawing from the territory.
The reason he cited for it continuing at all was Donald Trump, who he said would keep the pressure on Israel. In retrospect, even that view was optimistic: the ceasefire never made it past the six-week opening phase. Israel resumed its military operation, the goals of which now extend beyond the return of Israeli hostages, even defeating Hamas.
Under the new plan approved by the cabinet, dubbed Gideon’s Chariots, Israel will retain territory without a fixed end date. Previously, the Israeli military would clear a district and withdraw, allowing Hamas to regroup in what turned into a destructive game of whack-a-mole. The futility of this approach was underscored to Israeli leaders by the sight of Hamas fighters in crisp uniforms emerging from areas of destruction to release hostages during the first phase of that ceasefire.
Israeli forces are now digging in for an extended occupation, even if that means assuming responsibility for handing out aid. The plan hinges on displacing more Palestinians from northern Gaza, where the majority lived before the war.
It would also turn some of Gaza into what is shaping up to be a permanent security buffer.
Israel is hoping that Hamas will in the meantime succumb to internal pressure. The militants have been as busy quelling dissent from hungry and homeless Palestinians as they have been fighting Israel in recent weeks.
The subtext is that there will be little left standing for those Palestinians to return to, should the war ever end. Rafah, in southern Gaza, has been completely flattened in recent weeks. That will make Trump’s idea, supported by Israel, of “encouraging” Gaza’s residents to leave more tempting. The new plan will work towards that end, Israeli officials say.
All such attempts have failed in the past, despite threats from Trump to withhold aid from Egypt and Jordan if they refuse to take in refugees.
Both states say the plan is tantamount to ethnic cleansing and have been backed by other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, where Trump is due to visit along with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Egypt’s plan is to sideline Hamas, fund Gaza’s redevelopment and keep the Palestinians in place.
Arab officials are optimistic that Trump can be swayed and Israel has said it will allow a grace period coinciding with Trump’s visit for Hamas to release the remaining hostages.
But Hamas has proven it has no qualms about seeing thousands of Palestinians die and territory destroyed. It will surely resist giving up the remaining hostages without an Israeli commitment to ending the war.
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The reality of conquer and hold
Israel must not lose sight of an eventual political solution to the crisis
The Australian | Editorial | 7 May 2025
Outrage always was certain to follow the announcement by Israel’s security cabinet on Monday local time of a dramatically changed strategy for Gaza, which has been summed up by a senior official as being to “conquer the Strip and hold the territory”.
That is, effectively, to occupy it. But with Hamas obdurate in its unrelenting pursuit of terrorism and the destruction of the Jewish state and its people, and unwilling to release the 24 surviving hostages and 35 bodies of other hostages it is still holding, what alternative does Israel have but to pursue a different strategy in Gaza? Hamas may be on its last legs in the war it launched with its October 7, 2023 slaughter of 1200 Jews. Its vile Iranian paymasters may be in no less trouble. But the reality is that the strategy Israel has used so far – of attacking Hamas strongholds and, to minimise casualties, then retreating – is not achieving the definitive annihilation of the terrorists that is needed to end the war and the suffering of Gaza’s people.
Hamas, as The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, is continuing to reinfiltrate and rebuild in areas of Gaza as soon as Israeli forces move on. The new “conquer and hold” strategy is aimed at putting an end to that. A major new offensive, for which tens of thousands of army reservists have been called up, will be aimed at taking and fully occupying most parts of Gaza for the foreseeable future – thereby overturning Israel’s longstanding strategy that followed its disengagement from the Strip in 2005 when Ariel Sharon was prime minister. The new strategy will entail moving most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people to areas in the south of the Strip cleared of Hamas terrorists and held by Israeli forces. Importantly, it also will involve Israel taking full control of the distribution of aid for Gaza’s people that currently is prey to Hamas hijackers who divert it for their own use. Unsurprisingly, the UN and non-government organisations operating in Gaza have been quick to condemn the new Israeli strategy. “It is dangerous, driving civilians into military zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching the forced displacement (of Gazans),” they said in a joint statement on Monday.
Such apprehensions are understandable and there can be no doubt about the scale of the military and humanitarian challenges that face Israel as it launches its new strategy ahead of Donald Trump’s much anticipated visit to the Middle East, beginning in Saudi Arabia on May 13. But Hamas’s intransigence and unwillingness to agree a ceasefire, much less to free the hostages, have left Israel with no alternative but to seek new ways to destroy the terrorist organisation. Blaming the Netanyahu government for the impasse over a ceasefire and the failure to gain the release of the hostages, as pressure groups in Israel do, is all very well. But it ignores the reality of Hamas’s unrelenting terrorism and the existential threat that poses to the Jewish state and its people.
It also fails to take into account the impact that the continuing war is having on remaining hopes for an eventual two-state solution to the crisis that will ensure Israel’s security as well as fulfil Palestinian ambitions for statehood. It is imperative that in launching its new occupation strategy in Gaza, the Netanyahu government does not lose sight of the importance of achieving an eventual political solution to the crisis. A spokesman for Mr Trump’s National Security Council got it right on Monday when he blamed Hamas for the continuing conflict and Israel’s resort to occupation as a strategy. No less responsible, however, are supine Arab states that have failed to put the pressure needed on Hamas to release the hostages and end the war. Mr Trump, when he meets leaders of the Arab world in Saudi Arabia, must remind them of that failure.
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Happy birthday Israel, with wishes of better days ahead
Daily Telegraph | Chris Minns | 7 May 2025
The State of Israel may have started as a dream, but as Theodor Herzl once said, if you will it, it is no dream, and the people of Israel have willed it against the odds, against all expectations, for 77 miraculous years.
As I’ve said many times before, I once travelled to Israel. And can I say, what other nation combines that sense of history with the sure grip of progress and modernity. What other nation values its past while gazing out on the future with a sense of hope and boundless optimism.
And from my first day in Parliament, I’ve been proud to count myself a friend of the Jewish people of NSW and a friend of the State of Israel.
If Israel was created as a refuge for the Jewish people escaping the unimaginable terror of the Shoah, then as I see it, NSW is no different.
Ever since eight Jewish people sailed here on the First Fleet, this state has been home to the Jewish people, and if that sense of belonging has been tested, in any way, over the past year, I sincerely apologise.
Over summer, we have seen things many of us thought we would never see in a country like Australia.
A holy synagogue desecrated by a hateful swastika, cowardly attacks conducted anonymously under the cover of darkness designed to instil fear into the community.
I want to affirm this from the top down in our state, that any campaign of hatred under any circumstances will fail in NSW.
It will fail because of the inner strength of the Jewish people in our state.
It will fail because you have the vast, vast majority of Australians at your back.
And it will fail because if you attempt this kind of menace, the police will track you down, they’ll throw the book at you, and most crucially, we’ll ensure that there are laws in place to punish severely those who attempt this kind of vile racism.
As you might know a few months ago, the NSW Government in a bipartisan effort with the Opposition, passed stronger laws against hate speech and anti-semitism.
Now there’s been some commentary on those laws, with some people criticising how quickly we moved, but I want to say tonight, I will never apologise for taking the poison of anti-semitism swiftly and seriously. If there was any risk this summer, it wasn’t moving too fast, it was acting too slow.
We cannot allow a situation where an elderly survivor of the Holocaust is intimidated or harassed as they celebrate the Shabbat with their community and their family.
I know it’s been a rough summer, but with light of friendship, with the warmth of your allies, with the strength and love and the great virtues of the Jewish faith, we will get through these difficult days together.
Happy birthday to Israel.
It’s one of the special places on Earth, and I join you all in praying it has better days ahead.
Premier Chris Minns gave this speech at the Yom Ha’atzmaut cocktail gala in Sydney last night.
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Israel aim for ‘conquest’
Daily Telegraph / The Times, AFP | 7 May 2025
TEL AVIV: Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans to pursue the “conquest” of Gaza and occupy the entire territory and stay there indefinitely, breaking a long taboo, even at increased risk to the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forward a new operational plan for the devastated Gaza Strip that was unanimously approved by the cabinet yesterday, according to officials.
Over the weekend, Israel called up tens of thousands of reservist soldiers. The move to occupy Gaza was criticised by families of some of the remaining hostages. It would be put into operation after US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week, now seen as a last chance to reach a ceasefire.
The expanded operations in Gaza would include displacing “most” residents of the Palestinian territory, with the UN chief expressing alarm at the plan
An Israeli official said the operations “will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection”.
A different senior security official said “a central component of the plan is a large-scale evacuation of the entire Gazan population from the fighting zones … to areas in southern Gaza.”
The plan comes amid a push by Israel for Palestinians to leave the territory.
The European Union voiced concern and urged restraint from Israel, saying the plan “will result in further casualties and suffering for the Palestinian people”.
A UN spokesman said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “alarmed” by the Israeli plan that “will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.
“Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state,” said spokesman Farhan Haq.
Since the resumption of fighting in March, the Israeli army has changed strategy and begun to hold on to large chunks of territory, instead of moving area by area, as it attempts to root out Hamas.
Under the proposal, Israel will outsource security in Gaza to private companies, freeing its soldiers from coming face to face with the civilian population. Similar actions have been taken in the past in the West Bank and Jerusalem, where private security contractors operate key checkpoints to monitor the movement of residents in a scheme overseen by the Israeli military.
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Poll suggests almost half of Gazans willing to leave
Canberra Times / AAP | 7 May 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8960314/poll-suggests-almost-half-of-gazans-willing-to-leave/
Almost half of the residents of the Gaza Strip may be willing to apply to Israel to help them leave to other countries, according to a survey that also showed significant support for anti-Hamas protests.
The survey by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research was based on polling of people across the Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank between May 1-4, six weeks after Israeli forces resumed operations in the enclave following the breakdown of a brief ceasefire.
The centre, a think tank based in Ramallah and funded by foreign donors, said in the report that 49 per cent of those surveyed declared that they would be willing to apply to Israel to help them emigrate via Israeli ports and airports, against 50 per cent who said they would not be willing to do so.
Israeli officials have said that Israel will help Gazans who wish to leave the enclave but it has made little headway persuading other countries to accept them.
Although Israel’s 19-month campaign has reduced most of the Gaza Strip to rubble and a blockade on aid since March has left the 2.3 million population increasingly short of food, many Palestinians believe that leaving would mean effectively surrendering their home to Israel.
Hardline Israeli ministers have made little secret of their wish to see the whole Gaza Strip population moved out of the enclave, in line with US President Donald Trump’s proposal to redevelop the area as a coastal resort under US control.
The survey also stated 48 per cent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip supported a series of anti-Hamas demonstrations that sprang up in various places around the enclave, a much higher level than among Palestinians in the West Bank, where only 14 per cent backed the protests, a rare public show of opposition to the militant group.
At the same time, 54 per cent of Gazans also thought the protests, which Hamas said were set up by Israeli intelligence services, were steered by outside hands and only 20 per cent said they expressed the real opinion of the population.
The centre said the survey’s sample was 1270 with a margin of error of +/-3.5 per cent.
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Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says
Bezalel Smotrich says Palestinians will ‘leave in great numbers to third countries’, raising fears of ethnic cleansing
The Guardian | Jason Burke & Julian Borger | 7 May 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/06/hamas-israel-hunger-war-in-gaza
An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory.
The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.
The Israeli threats to seize control of the territory permanently has stirred global outrage.
“We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s operations,” the UK’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said. “Any attempt to annex land in Gaza would be unacceptable.”
After the intensified offensive was announced, Hamas said it was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, a reference to the total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza, which has been in place for more than two months.
“There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.
Effie Defrin, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said the planned offensive would include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip … to protect them”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the “population will be moved, for its own protection” in a video posted on social media, but gave no further details.
Smotrich, speaking to a conference on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, went further, making clear that many Palestinians would be driven out of the territory altogether, as part of a scorched earth offensive.
“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” the minister said.
Israel’s neighbours Egypt and Jordan have said they will refuse to allow an exodus of refugees on their territory, arguing that would make them party to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
The international court of justice is assessing allegations of genocide against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza, and last year issued a series of provisional measures that included orders for Israel to “take all measures” to prevent genocide being committed or incited, and to allow the “unhindered provision” of humanitarian assistance across the territory’s southern border with Egypt.
The international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and the ICC prosecutor is reported to be preparing more warrant requests.
“Smotrich has been saying similar things for some time now, but obviously this is very serious in the context of the call for more troops by the government,” Victor Kattan, assistant professor in public international law at the University of Nottingham, said.
“Deportation and forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity under the Rome statute [the ICC’s founding treaty], and that’s a clear call for that. If that’s occurring in the context of his ministerial position or as a result of deliberations in the cabinet, that could be very serious.”
Late on Tuesday, at least 22 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, said Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Dozens more were wounded in the attack on Bureij camp in the centre of the territory, civil defence media officer Ahmad Radwan told AFP.
The call for an intensification of Israel’s war in Gaza came as it carried out a second day of airstrikes aimed at Houthi forces in Yemen, severely damaging the country’s international airport in the capital, Sana’a.
The strikes came after Israel launched similar attacks on Monday in retaliation for a Houthi missile strike the previous day on Israel’s international airport.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often repeatedly, since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250.
More than 52,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed. A two-month ceasefire collapsed in mid-March when Israel reneged on a promise to implement a second phase.
Faltering indirect talks have continued since, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, but with little sign of any significant progress. Any breakthrough appears unlikely as long as Israel remains committed to forcing Hamas to disarm, and Hamas refuses to release hostages without a ceasefire leading to a permanent end to hostilities as well as a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Some analysts suggest Israel’s threats of the new offensive, occupation of territory and massive displacement are designed to force concessions from Hamas, as well as shore up right-wing support for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
Hamas on Monday described the new Israeli framework for aid delivery in Gaza as “political blackmail” and blamed Israel for the war-ravaged territory’s “humanitarian catastrophe”.
A UN spokesperson said on Monday that António Guterres, the UN secretary general, was “alarmed” by the Israeli plan that “will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.
Humanitarian officials say the territory is on the brink of catastrophe as food and fuel runs out due to a total Israeli blockade imposed on 2 March.
Military officials in Israel have given different versions of a plan reportedly agreed by ministers to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza, which would be distributed from a small number of newly constructed hubs in the south of the territory staffed by private contractors but protected by Israeli troops.
Humanitarian officials have dismissed the scheme as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful.
“The design of the plan presented to us will mean large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies,” a joint statement by UN and other aid agencies said this week.
“It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy.
“It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarised zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.”
Stephen Cutts, the interim head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Israel’s proposed military-controlled aid mechanism is a dangerous attempt to weaponise humanitarian aid, entrench further control over Gaza, and continue its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
US officials have not reacted directly to Israel’s threat of a new offensive, but Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration would help get food to “starving” Palestinians. He blamed Hamas for making it “impossible” by diverting humanitarian assistance for its fighters.
“We’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.
Israeli officials have said the new operation will not be launched before Trump concludes his visit next week to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.
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How Trump’s walkaway diplomacy enabled Israel’s worst impulses
The common perception is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices
The Guardian | Andrew Roth |7 May 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/trump-diplomacy-israel-gaza-war
The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war.
The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for right-wing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.
“Part of the tragedy is that the only one who can actually save us, Trump, is not even seriously interested in that,” said Amos Harel, a prominent military and defense correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper. “Our only hope to get out of this crazy situation is that Trump would force Netanyahu to reach a hostage deal. But [Trump] seems disinterested. He was enthusiastic when the Riviera [idea] was proposed, but now he has moved on to Greenland, Canada and Mexico instead.”
Trump’s interventions – specifically envoy Steve Witkoff’s threats to Netanyahu during a tense Shabbat meeting – were instrumental in achieving a temporary ceasefire to the conflict in January. His influence on Netanyahu appeared to be greater than that of previous US presidents, including his rival Joe Biden.
But since then the ceasefire has broken down, a two-month Israeli blockade on aid has sparked an even worse humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and, with few opportunities for a quick peace, the White House now appears uninterested and overstretched as Israel signals an offensive and occupation that critics have said will amount to a state policy of ethnic cleansing.
It is a trend that has repeated with this White House: broad designs for a grand deal followed by frustration when diplomacy fails to yield instant results. Recently, the White House announced that it was also ready to walk away from negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine conflict if a quick deal was not achieved. That has incentivized Russia to wait out the Trump administration, observers have said, and bank on a policy of US non-engagement in the longer term. Netanyahu similarly appears to have been unleashed by the White House’s growing disinterest.
The Israeli ultimatum comes as Trump is scheduled to tour the Middle East next week, with Israeli officials briefing that they will begin the operation only after he returns from a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Trump’s talks there are expected to focus on investment and a likely quixotic quest to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but not on achieving a resolution to the war. On Tuesday, Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, reported that a Trump visit to Israel was not out of the question, but White House officials have not yet signaled that Trump is ready to go meet Netanyahu.
Witkoff, the Trump envoy, still appears personally invested in a resolution to the conflict, but he is overstretched by attempting to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, and also negotiate an Iran nuclear deal simultaneously. The US has continued negotiations with Israel over an aid delivery scheme that would create a new mechanism for aid distribution to avoid Hamas, they have said. But the UN and all aid organizations working in Gaza have condemned the plan as an Israeli takeover. “It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy,” the heads of all UN agencies and NGOs that operate in Gaza said in a joint statement on Sunday.
The Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts have also signaled a retreat from diplomacy. The state department was reportedly ready to cut the role of the security coordinator role for the West Bank and Gaza, a three-star general who was tasked with managing security crises between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, particularly with regards to growing tensions between settlers and local Palestinian communities.
More importantly, Trump has given cover to Israeli officials who had sought more aggressive action in Gaza, including forced depopulations. Rightwingers in government have been particularly aggressive, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich saying that within months Gaza would be “totally destroyed” and the Gazan population would be “concentrated” in a small strip of land. “The rest of the strip will be empty,” he said.
But other ministers have also become more radical using Trump’s rhetoric for cover, said Harel.
“Once Trump said that, you could see how not only the radicals, but also Likud ministers and so on, have an excuse,” said Harel. “‘It’s not us. It’s the world, the free world’s leader is saying that, so we have to play along.’”
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Palestinian activist says home raided ‘in revenge’ for appearing in Louis Theroux documentary
Issa Amro shares videos of confrontations with balaclava-clad military who he claims ‘want revenge’ after the BBC film The Settlers
The Guardian | Matthew Pearce | 6 May 2025
A Palestinian activist who appeared in a Louis Theroux documentary about settlers in the West Bank has reportedly had his home raided by Israeli soldiers.
Issa Amro, co-founder of the non-violent activist group Youth Against Settlements, shared videos on social media of confrontations with Israeli military at his home, and another of a group of Israeli settlers forcing entry to the property.
Posting on X, Amro said: “The soldiers raided my house today, they wanted revenge from me for participating in the BBC documentary ‘the settlers’, after the army left the settlers raided my house, they injured one activist and cut the tree, they stole tools and the garbage containers.”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council have said that the settlements have “no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation under international law.”
Amro lives in Hebron, the capital of the West Bank’s largest governorate. In Louis Theroux’s documentary, The Settlers, Amro shows Theroux around the Israeli-occupied area of the city, home to about 35,000 Palestinians and 700 settlers protected by the Israeli military.
The documentary, which aired in April on BBC Two, shows Amro and Theroux being confronted by military as they walk around the area. When the pair are sworn at by a passing driver, Amro explains to Theroux: “You deserve a middle finger if you report about Palestinians.”
“By international law, the settlements are illegal,” Amro said in the documentary. “They don’t see us as equal human beings who deserve the same rights they do.”
In one of the videos posted on X, Amro challenges a group of balaclava-covered soldiers at his house, asking why they have their faces covered. One soldier replies: “You know exactly why.”
A Nobel peace prize nominee and one of the West Bank’s most prominent activists, Amro is best known for his work for Youth Against Settlements, which aims to end the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Theroux, posting on X, said: “@Issaamro who featured in The Settlers has posted videos of his latest harassment by settlers and soldiers. Our team has been in regular contact with him since the documentary and over the last 24 hours. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces accused Amro of spreading “false information,” adding: “As the videos clearly show, the soldiers present on May 3 in the Hebron area were there to disperse the confrontation between Palestinian residents and Israeli civilians.”
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Hamas says it will not engage with Israel again until ‘hunger war’ in Gaza ends
‘No sense’ in considering new truce proposals, says group, hours after Israel agrees plan for ‘conquest’ of territory
The Guardian | Jason Burke | 6 May 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/06/hamas-israel-hunger-war-in-gaza
Hamas has said it is no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, hours after Israeli officials agreed an intensified offensive in the devastated territory that would involve displacing “most” of its residents and a sustained Israeli military presence.
“There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.
On Monday, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.
Effie Defrin, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said the planned offensive would include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip … to protect them”. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the “population will be moved, for its own protection” in a video posted on social media, but gave no further details.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times, since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250. More than 52,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed. A two-month ceasefire collapsed in mid-March when Israel reneged on a promise to implement a second phase.
Faltering indirect talks have continued since, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, but with little sign of any significant progress. Any breakthrough appears unlikely as long as Israel remains committed to forcing Hamas to disarm, and Hamas refuses to release hostages without a ceasefire leading to a permanent end to hostilities as well as a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Some analysts suggest Israel’s threats of the new offensive, occupation of territory and massive displacement are designed to force concessions from Hamas, as well as shore up rightwing support for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
Hamas on Monday described the new Israeli framework for aid delivery in Gaza as “political blackmail” and blamed Israel for the war-ravaged territory’s “humanitarian catastrophe”.
The prospect of a new and intensified Israeli offensive has prompted deep international concern.
Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, in a radio interview on Tuesday called Israel’s plan for a Gaza offensive “unacceptable”, and said its government was “in violation of humanitarian law”.
A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said the UK did not support an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, while a UN spokesperson said on Monday that António Guterres, the UN secretary general, was “alarmed” by the Israeli plan that “will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.
Humanitarian officials say the territory is on the brink of catastrophe as food and fuel runs out due to a total Israeli blockade imposed on 2 March.
Military officials in Israel have given different versions of a plan reportedly agreed by ministers to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza, which would be distributed from a small number of newly constructed hubs in the south of the territory staffed by private contractors but protected by Israeli troops.
Humanitarian officials have dismissed the scheme as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful.
US officials have not reacted directly to Israel’s threat of a new offensive, but President Trump said on Monday that his administration would help get food to “starving” Palestinians. He blamed Hamas for making it “impossible” by diverting humanitarian assistance for its fighters.
“We’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.
Israeli officials have said the new operation will not be launched before Trump concludes his visit next week to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.
Naim, a Hamas political bureau member and former health minister in Gaza, called for international pressure on Israel to end the “crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings”.
In recent weeks, Israeli troops have reinforced kilometre-deep “buffer zones” along the perimeter of the territory and expanded their hold over much of the north and south of the territory.
In all, more than 70% of Gaza is under Israeli control or covered by orders issued by Israel telling Palestinian civilians to evacuate specific neighbourhoods.
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