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Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Has the world had it with Israel?
In Israel, left-wing politician Yair Golan, a retired general, recently stirred controversy when he said in an interview with Israel Radio that 'Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state' and added that 'a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the aim of expelling populations.' In the face of intense criticism, he has since walked back those comments. But while Golan's comments were condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, they 'also sparked a discussion about Israel's conduct and what it is doing and the toll of the war on civilians,' said Tia Goldenberg, a correspondent for the Associated Press in Jerusalem. In an interview with Vox's Today, Explained, Goldenberg said Golan's comments are indicative of the fact that Israelis are increasingly turning against their country's war in Gaza. View Link That war began on October 7, 2023, when an attack by Hamas fighters left 1,200 dead and 250 captured. Some of those kidnapped have been returned; others have died. There are 58 hostages remaining in Gaza, of which a third are believed to be alive. Israel's attacks on Gaza have killed more than 50,000 people and have devastated Gaza, leaving much of it uninhabitable. In recent weeks, it has expanded its military offensive, with increased air strikes and a goal of capturing the entire Gaza Strip and moving the population of Gaza to the south of the territory. That escalation comes amid a dire hunger crisis. Israel began a total humanitarian aid blockade on March 2 in order to increase pressure on Hamas to return the remaining hostages, leading one critic to accuse the country of using aid as a 'weapon of war' during an April hearing on Israel's war strategy at the International Court of Justice. 'During these few weeks, or nearly three months actually, no aid was being let into Gaza, no food, no medicine, no fuel, and you had a situation where food experts were warning that nearly 1 million Palestinians barely had enough access to food, and nearly half a million Palestinians were at the risk of possible starvation,' Goldenberg said. The escalating strikes and threat of mass starvation haven't just roiled Israeli politics; they've also drawn worldwide condemnation of Israel and created an unlikely coalition of critics. MAGA-friendly podcaster and standup comedian Theo Von recently described the ongoing conflict in Gaza as a 'genocide' and 'one of the sickest things that's ever happened.' Leading children's entertainer and YouTube star Ms. Rachel has used her platform to talk about how the conflict is affecting children in the region. 'It's sad that people try to make it controversial when you speak out for children that are facing immeasurable suffering,' she told Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan. 'I think it should be controversial to not say anything.' The new pope, Leo XIV, like his predecessor, has appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza, the freeing of the remaining hostages, and called on Israel and Hamas to respect international humanitarian law. German leaders have made public comments about changing their country's long-running special relationship with Israel, while French President Emmanuel Macron has floated acknowledging Palestine as a state. Even President Donald Trump, a longtime ally of Israel and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has started to suggest he's seen enough. 'Israel, we've been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as quickly as possible,' he said last weekend. All of this suggests an inflection point in Israel's long-running war. It has been made possible in part thanks to aid from allies like the US, Germany, and France. If that support were to deteriorate, continuing its operations could become more difficult. That is not to say the war's end is necessarily near. Despite the shift in rhetoric, few of Israel's allies have made any material changes to their relationship with the country. Israel's goal of completely destroying Hamas has not changed. It recently killed Mohammed Sinwar, believed to be the head of Hamas's armed wing. 'It's just been an intense, intense conflict. And yet that hasn't dislodged Hamas from its position. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is under a lot of political pressure from his governing coalition to continue the war,' Goldenberg said. 'It's hard to see how the sides reconcile and come to an agreement that ends this war.' This piece originally ran in the Today, Explained newsletter. For more stories like this, sign up here.
BBC News
20-02-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Return of bodies marks day of anguish for Israel
On a bleak late winter's day, under leaden skies and occasional driving rain, this was the moment all Israelis had been return of the began, as all the handovers so far have begun, with a politically charged display by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups involved in holding Israeli hostages for over 500 again, there was a stage, flanked by huge posters highlighting the catastrophic consequences of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and the Palestinian determination to stay instead of haunted, sometimes emaciated, survivors, there were four black coffins, each bearing a photograph and a name – Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir - accompanied by the image of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin casings bore the slogan: "They were killed by US bombs". Hamas has long argued that all four were killed by Israeli air raids on Gaza, something which has not been previously, Red Cross officials were on hand to oversee the process. In a rare public statement on the matter, they had urged Hamas to conduct the handover in a private, dignified efforts had clearly been in vain, but they attempted to screen the coffins from public scrutiny, draping each one in a white sheet before driving them watching crowd was smaller than usual, perhaps because of the heavy Thursday morning's handover, at a military ceremony on the edge of the Gaza Strip, the coffins carrying the hostages were draped with Israeli flags and prayers offered by the army's chief rabbi.A convoy of vehicles then made its way north towards the Abu Kabir forensic institute, in Jaffa, where formal identification of the bodies is taking the route, small groups of Israelis stood silently in the rain, carrying Israeli flags and yellow banners - the colour associated with the hostages and their Karmei Gat, where displaced members of kibbutz Nir Oz are living, waiting to go home, the vigil was particularly four of Thursday's released hostages were seized from Nir Oz on 7 October Aviv's Hostages Square was a study in grief, with people crying or sitting on the ground, heads in faces of the red-headed Bibas boys - Ariel and Kfir - are plastered on walls, road signs and in windows up and down the country. Fearing the worst, Israelis have nevertheless clung to the hope that the brothers might have survived, along with their mother, Shiri."We were devastated by the news," Orly Marron said, outside Abu Kabir."I have red-headed grandchildren and seeing the photographs is really very heartbreaking."Oded Lifschitz's son, Yizhar, meanwhile told Israel Radio that he had always feared for his father's health, since his violent abduction in October was 84 years old at the time. He and his wife, Yocheved, were both taken to Khan Younis in Gaza, where they were separated, never to see each other was released by Hamas two weeks after the attack."We need to close this wound and move forward," Yizhar said, adding that his father, a noted journalist and peace activist, had long had a vision about how to resolve the conflicts of the Middle East."It's sad that we went through this whole cycle and didn't solve it," Yizhar said. "We left it as something simmering, and look where we are now." Meanwhile, back in Gaza, some Palestinians expressed their anger that Israeli bodies had been handed over, while an unknown number of Palestinians killed in Israel's military campaign remain buried in the apocalyptic wreckage of the Gaza addition, as many as 665 bodies are being held by Israel in numbered cemeteries, according to a Palestinian protest group, The National Campaign to Recover the Bodies of the Martyrs. It says some have been held for decades."I don't like this agreement at all," Ikram Abu Salout said in Khan Younis. "They didn't remove the rubble and we don't even know where our children and families are."As she was speaking, bulldozers flying Egyptian flags were finally arriving in northern Gaza. Israel allowed the equipment to enter, in exchange for Thursday's handover and the release of six more living hostages this coming Saturday.
