Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S.-licensed assassin who governs Israel, is desperate, shooting left and right in Gaza. Aerial and artillery bombing of schools, hospitals and refugee camps multiply daily. New mountains of rubble bury countless corpses, impossible to rescue.
Meanwhile, allies of the colonialist, ultra-Orthodox extreme right are working toward completely annexing the West Bank and the expelling all Palestinian Arab residents; and seek to kill, evict, occupy, and establish new Jewish colonies and military posts in full view of the Israeli army — doing so even with its repressive and military support.
Each side in the government is clear about its interests and objectives. Netanyahu is fighting a race against dwindling time to be held to account by Israeli voters who considers him guilty of failing to effectively prevent the daring military assault by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which took more than 250 hostages as it retreated and left hundreds of military and civilian casualties. All of that was inevitable — a revolt against 75 years of oppression. It does remain on record, however, that in its inefficient response, the Israeli army itself and other armed forces killed its own citizens with tank and helicopter fire.
Some 325 days after that resounding failure, Netanyahu is still pursuing the chimera of physically eliminating the head, or the heart, of the Hamas. Hamas continues to deal daily blows — now leaving more than 2,000 dead and 10,000 wounded, according to official figures — to what was supposed to be the most powerful army in the Middle East. And that army is allegedly backed by the most sophisticated, efficient and infallible intelligence agencies in the region, who search like bloodhounds for Palestinian leaders, and who are advised and supported with all the most advanced technical paraphernalia of the CIA and other U.S. national security agencies.
The White House and the Pentagon have confirmed this, but nothing proves it better than their participation as top negotiators and mediators on behalf of Israel in talks to reach a cease-fire and prisoner exchange with Hamas.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken expended his diplomatic firepower during another trip to the region, yet drew a blank. CIA Director William Burns spent the weekend in Cairo negotiating with Egyptian and Qatari mediators who would brief Hamas on new proposals for a cease-fire agreement, and also came up empty-handed.
New Israeli attacks hit the Gaza Strip on Monday, especially the center of the enclave, from which tens of thousands of families fled once more in the face of new army “evacuation” orders, repeatedly described by the U.N. as forced displacement. The new Israeli evacuation order forced thousands of Palestinians to leave Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, the last functioning medical center in Gaza’s central region.
Those orders, given sometimes minutes before the bombing starts, have already displaced more than 250,000 people, according to the United Nations. Medical sources on Monday raised the total number of dead since Oct. 7 to 40,435. In addition, 66 people were wounded on Oct. 7, bringing the number of injured to 93,534.
On Monday, Hamas called the attacks and forced displacements in the enclave’s central region some of “the most disgusting images of a genocide seen in the modern era.” Hamas representative Osama Hamdan, who followed the negotiations without taking part directly, said that Hamas rejected the new conditions imposed by Israel during the talks. He added that Washington’s comments about a possible cease-fire agreement were “false” and motivated by the presidential election.
President Joe Biden and his administration face growing protests over their support for Israel. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris affirmed her support for what she called “Israel’s defense”; however, her election could deal a mortal blow to Netanyahu, who is counting on Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The stalemate in the cease-fire negotiations occurred on the very day that more than 100 Israeli aircraft attacked Lebanon. The Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, responded by launching more than 340 drones and rockets that reportedly managed to hit military and intelligence units in Tel Aviv, opening a new pressure point for Netanyahu and his claim to be firmly entrenched in his position of power.
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