A US-based aid group admitted Friday that a group of individuals — who the Israeli military says were armed — took control of an aid convoy in the southern Gaza Strip the day before, without the organization having vetted them or coordinated the matter with the Israel Defense Forces.

The military said Thursday that it struck the gunmen, killing them while not harming aid workers.

According to the IDF, Hamas operatives frequently try to hijack aid deliveries.

The IDF had said on Thursday that a convoy of aid trucks from the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) organization entered the southern Rafah area with Israeli coordination. It said that during the drive, it identified a group of gunmen taking over a vehicle at the front of the convoy and beginning to lead it. The IDF described the act as a hijacking attempt.

Shortly afterward, the IDF said it was able to determine that it could strike just the car with the gunmen, without harming the rest of the convoy, and so it carried out a strike, killing at least four.

Contemporary left-wing antizionist discourse reproduces with stunning fidelity some of the central tropes of Soviet antizionist propaganda, which demonized Israel and Zionism. The article explores the background of these tropes, looks at the biographies of the right- wing Soviet ideologues who developed them, and examines the mechanisms through which they reached the West. The article concludes that these tropes are inextricably linked to antisemitic conspiracy theory, containing seeds of anti-Jewish violence that we ignore at our own peril.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) prioritizes its payments to terrorists, and has therefore lost more than 6.96 billion shekels (over $1.88 billion) in the last 5 years alone, according to its own data.

The official PA news agency, WAFA, criticized Israel for causing the PA’s financial crises largely by deducting money that the PA uses for terror payments. However, a look at the PA’s numbers shows that the PA itself is responsible for its crises.

Support for the two-state solution drops significantly among Palestinians and Israeli Jews, from 43% in September 2020 to 33% among the Palestinians and 34% among Israeli Jews. Among all Israelis, Jews and Arabs, 39% in total support the two-state solution. This is the lowest level of support for this concept among Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and all Israelis, since the beginning of the Pulse, in June 2016. Still, fewer people among Palestinians and Israelis as a whole support two possible alternatives to a two-state solution: one state with equal rights and one state without rights. Among Israeli Jews, however, support for one unequal state under Israeli rule is higher than the two-state solution

Support for the alternative of a two state confederation has varied over time, with different dynamics among Israelis and Palestinians. Among the Israeli population, support moved steadily upwards from 2016 through late 2017 and 2018, then fell once again to the same level as 2016, with 28% in total at present. Among Palestinians, support for a confederation plan reflects similar dynamics to other solutions: a mostly consistent downward trajectory from 2016 onwards, and 22% total support at present. The current survey for the first time tested five component aspects of the two state confederation, regarding freedom of movement, citizenship and residency for refugees and settlers, Jerusalem and joint authorities for civic affairs; most did not reach 30 percent support among Israeli Jews or Palestinians. The only exception was half of Israeli Jews who support joint civic institutions. However, a majority Israeli Arabs support both the full package and each item (for just one item, support was slightly below half), consistent with their pattern of support for all frameworks for a democratic resolution of the conflict.

As in previous surveys, levels of trust in the other side are very low: 86% of Palestinians and 85% of Israeli Jews believe the other side is not trustworthy.

Each side perceives itself as an exclusive victim (84% of Palestinians and 84% of Israeli Jews), while an overwhelming majority of Palestinians (90%) but only a smaller majority of Israeli Jews (63%) think this suffering grants them with a moral right to do anything they deem as necessary for survival. A vast majority among both groups (93%) see themselves as rightful owners of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river. While a third of Israeli Jews are willing to accept some ownership right of the Palestinians, only 7% of Palestinians are willing to accept such idea about the Jews.

We asked Israelis and the Palestinians about their support for a list containing confidence building measures that the Palestinian and the Israeli sides can jointly take to improve the Palestinian-Israeli environment and promote healthy conditions for a resumption of viable peace negotiations:

1. ICC and area C: Palestinians will stop going to the International Criminal Court and Israel will allow the PA to build new cities in area C of the West Bank
2. Payments to prisoners and release of prisoners: Palestinians will replace the current system of payments to security prisoners and families of those killed in conflict with a social security system based on family needs and Israel will release to the Palestinian Authority hundreds of Palestinian prisoners among those who are sick, those that have already spent most of their prison terms, female prisoners, and others who do not pose a security threat
3. Textbooks and PA elections: Palestinians will revise their current school textbooks to remove any incitement against Jews and Israeli will allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to participate in the PA elections in accordance with the terms of the Oslo agreement
4. PA security deployment and Israeli incursions: Palestinian security services will enter all areas under the PA control to arrest and disarm any armed Palestinians and those planning to carry out attacks against Israelis and the Israeli army to stop its incursions into area A of the Palestinian territories

Old but essential article from 2014 to understand the media space around this conflict.

To make sense of most international journalism from Israel, it is important first to understand that the news tells us far less about Israel than about the people writing the news. Journalistic decisions are made by people who exist in a particular social milieu, one which, like most social groups, involves a certain uniformity of attitude, behavior, and even dress (the fashion these days, for those interested, is less vests with unnecessary pockets than shirts with unnecessary buttons). These people know each other, meet regularly, exchange information, and closely watch one another’s work. This helps explain why a reader looking at articles written by the half-dozen biggest news providers in the region on a particular day will find that though the pieces are composed and edited by completely different people and organizations, they tend to tell the same story. (…)

foreign activists are a notable feature of the landscape, and where international NGOs and numerous arms of the United Nations are among the most powerful players, wielding billions of dollars and employing many thousands of foreign and local employees. Their SUVs dominate sections of East Jerusalem and their expense accounts keep Ramallah afloat. They provide reporters with social circles, romantic partners, and alternative employment—a fact that is more important to reporters now than it has ever been, given the disintegration of many newspapers and the shoestring nature of their Internet successors. (…)

My colleagues and I did not, that is, seek to analyze or criticize them. For many foreign journalists, these were not targets but sources and friends—fellow members, in a sense, of an informal alliance. This alliance consists of activists and international staffers from the UN and the NGOs; the Western diplomatic corps, particularly in East Jerusalem; and foreign reporters. (There is also a local component, consisting of a small number of Israeli human-rights activists who are themselves largely funded by European governments, and Palestinian staffers from the Palestinian Authority, the NGOs, and the UN.) Mingling occurs at places like the lovely Oriental courtyard of the American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem, or at parties held at the British Consulate’s rooftop pool. The dominant characteristic of nearly all of these people is their transience. They arrive from somewhere, spend a while living in a peculiar subculture of expatriates, and then move on. (…)

Hamas understood that journalists would not only accept as fact the Hamas-reported civilian death toll—relayed through the UN or through something called the “Gaza Health Ministry,” an office controlled by Hamas—but would make those numbers the center of coverage. Hamas understood that reporters could be intimidated when necessary and that they would not report the intimidation; Western news organizations tend to see no ethical imperative to inform readers of the restrictions shaping their coverage in repressive states or other dangerous areas. In the war’s aftermath, the NGO-UN-media alliance could be depended upon to unleash the organs of the international community on Israel, and to leave the jihadist group alone.(…)

It is time for a new voice to rise concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are two Palestinian-Israeli Citizens, who are unapologetic about our views, and our vision for a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians. Join us as we record as the war is going on in Israel and Gaza, as we delve deep into the roots of the war, and the way forward.

Really good podcast outside the radical circlejerk of western activists. Actual Palestinians and Israelis talk and listen to each other, building bridges to a common future.

An Israeli official said the IDF conducted strikes on long-range missiles Hezbollah prepared to launch at Israel. The official said the missiles were intended to be launched toward central Israel at 5:00 a.m. local time and were destroyed in the Israeli airstrikes several minutes before then. The IDF said Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets in two hours. Hezbollah said the "large-scale air attack" was directed at "a specific Israeli military target to be announced later, and against several enemy sites with a large number of missiles and drones." "These military operations will take some time to complete, after which a detailed announcement will be issued about their progress and goals," the statement from Hezbollah continued.