“Israel has resumed the supply of water to southern Gaza, Israel’s energy minister Israel Katz confirmed Sunday, following an agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden. “This will push the civilian population to the southern (part of the) Strip,” Katz said in a statement, a week after Israel had cut off water and the provision of other supplies to the entire territory. The decision came as Israel demanded one million Palestinians evacuate from Gaza’s north, in advance of Israel’s anticipated ground invasion to confront Hamas. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s State of the Union that Israeli counterparts had told him “they have in fact turned the water pipe back on in southern Gaza.” Sullivan said the Biden administration’s goal had been “to make sure that innocent Palestinians get access to those basic necessities and are protected from bombardment.””
“Israeli jets have started bombing in Lebanon as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) warned it would “destroy” the country if Hizbollah entered the war.
The air raids came as the United States and the UK expressed fears that Israel’s war with Hamas could “escalate” into a conflict involving “the wider Middle East”.
The Israeli strikes were carried out after anti-tank rockets fired by Hizbollah killed one person in northern Israel, in the most serious clashes outside of Gaza since the war began.
Tzachi Hanegbi, an Israeli national security adviser, warned the Iran-sponsored terrorist group not to start a war on a second front, threatening the “destruction of Lebanon” if it did.
Western nations have warned against any escalation in the conflict and have moved to try and prevent it spilling outwards, potentially drawing in Iran, with the US ordering a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region over the weekend.”
“While the world is focused on the war in Gaza, tensions have risen in the occupied West Bank, where 55 Palestinians were killed over the past week in clashes with Israeli troops, arrest raids and attacks by Jewish settlers. U.N. monitors said it was the deadliest week for Palestinians in the territory since at least 2005.”
“Israel’s military claims Qadi was apprehended in 2005 following the kidnapping and murder of Israeli civilians. He was released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011, the post said.
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange saw Hamas release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Israel’s release of more than 1,000 prisoners, most of whom were Palestinians or Arab-Israelis.”
“A group of fighters from Hamas’s military arm, the Al-Qassam brigades, entered Israel Saturday — an unprecedented breach of the security apparatus that controls Palestinian movement in and out of Israel — killing at least 700 Israelis, and at least 2,243 were injured, according to the New York Times. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,300 injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports, both in retaliatory strikes and in gunfights. There have also been reports of Hamas fighters taking hostages back into Gaza, holding Israelis hostage in their homes, and of gunfights in southern Israeli towns. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Sunday that his office is working to confirm that Americans are among the missing and dead.
Hamas has launched thousands of rockets and mortars into Israeli territory after the initial barrage of at least 2,200 on Saturday morning with additional volleys happening throughout Saturday and Sunday. That number is indicative of the massive scale of this operation; in the whole of a 50-day war between Hamas and Israel in 2014, the group, alongside others, launched a total of 4,564 rockets and mortars into Israel.
“Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about the attacks. “We are in a war and we will win it.” Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel has become increasingly hostile to Palestinians and encouraged Israeli settlements in parts of the West Bank, another Palestinian enclave.
Meanwhile, discussions about forming an emergency unity government between Netanyahu, Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid, and National Unity party leader Benny Gantz happened, but no clear resolution had been made as of Sunday.
The Israeli Defense Forces have already retaliated with airstrikes against Gaza, which has suffered from blockades by Israel and Egypt for years and has been described as an “open-air prison.” Meanwhile, Iran and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militant group based in southern Lebanon, have praised the attacks. Saudi Arabia, which is in negotiations to normalize relations with Israel, issued a statement calling for de-escalation, specifically calling out Israel for its “continued occupation, the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations against its sanctities.”
In Gaza, fears of a ground assault are growing as residents have been warned in a speech by Netanyahu to “leave now” after he threatened to turn Hamas strongholds “into rubble.” Many Palestinian civilians have sought shelter at schools set up by the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, as Israel hits Gaza with repeated air strikes.”
“Gaza is in essence a refugee camp (about 70 percent of those living in Gaza come from families displaced from the 1948 war) and an open-air prison, according to human rights groups. The United Nations describes the occupied territory as a “chronic humanitarian crisis.” Israel has blockaded Gaza since Hamas assumed control of the territory in 2007, and neighboring Egypt to the south has also imposed severe restrictions on movement.
Between them, Israel and Egypt monitor the entry and exit of all people, vehicles, and goods. They have not allowed enough construction materials and humanitarian items into the occupied Gaza Strip to enable the battered territory to rebuild from recurring episodes of deadly Israeli bombardments that are allegedly meant to target Hamas, but that often include civilian death tolls in the very dense territory.”
“Israeli forces launched a preemptive strike against PIJ targets on August 5, Reuters reported, after one of the group’s leaders, Bassam al-Saadi, was arrested in the Occupied West Bank. Israel claims to have hit a number of PIJ targets. However, several civilians, including 17 children, were killed in the clashes, both by Israeli weapons and possibly by errant PIJ rockets intended for Israeli targets. A ceasefire brokered by Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the US, the UN, and the Palestinian Authority between Israel and the PIJ last Sunday has thus far held; however, an attack on worshipers in Jerusalem’s Old City late on Sunday could portend more violence. At least eight people, including US citizens, were injured in the attack, which was allegedly carried out by a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, according to Israeli authorities. They have not yet released his name, and there is no indication that he is affiliated with any larger group, according to Reuters.
Despite the ceasefire, the aftermath of even short-term hostilities in Gaza goes far beyond active bombardments and shelling; the combination of years of violence, a brutal blockade, and state repression has created an enduring crisis. What’s more, there’s little chance to recover before violence breaks out again.
According to initial UN reporting, 360 Palestinians have been injured in the fighting, and Gazans experienced a tightened Israeli blockade of goods and services that led to 20-plus-hour rolling blackouts each day. There were no Israeli deaths or serious injuries, the Associated Press reported”
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“The Gaza strip is home to around 2 million Palestinians and has been governed by Hamas since 2007, when the group took control from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank. The two groups have had no success in creating a unity government over the past 15 years, despite repeated attempts, weakening the Palestinian resistance and further disenfranchising ordinary Palestinians. Although Fatah and Hamas agreed to hold elections in 2021, which would be the first since 2006, those elections have been postponed indefinitely.”