The discovery of a large Roman-era glassworks in northern Israel has shattered archaeologists’ understanding about glassmaking in the region, helping prove that ancient Judaea was a major producer of glass at the time.
The remnants of the 4th century CE factory were unearthed last summer just east of Haifa during construction of a new rail line connecting Afula and Beit She’an to Haifa, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Monday. Archaeologists said that the site was the oldest known glassworks found in the country, providing the “ultimate evidence” supporting historical references to a Judaean glass industry in Roman times.
Here's a Roman document, discovered in the 1970s, that listed "Judean glass" as one of the items bought:
Rome renamed Judea to be "Syria-Palestina" after the 135 CEBar Kochba Revolt, over 165 years prior to this edict.
Which indicates that the name "Palestina," while used in official Roman documents like diplomas and such, did not become part of normal vernacular even 165 years later.
Everyone know the region was Judea.
Of course, when the term "Palestine" became mainstream, it still referred to Jewish Judea. Hence the many maps of Palestine that included the 12 Tribes - and the word "Judea" as well.
Last week, a BBC reporter got more than she bargained for when what should have been a straightforward interview about A-Level results turned into a denunciation of her employers. Callum Johnson-Mills, a 19-year-old student at Liverpool City College, who was picking up his results that day, took the opportunity to say on-camera, “free Palestine, end the genocide, and the BBC is complicit”, calmly repeating the last part as the flustered reporter tried to get the conversation back on track.
When Callum posted the clip to his TikTok account, it went wildly viral – to date it’s racked up to 5 million views on TikTok alone, which seems to indicate a widespread frustration about the BBC and its failure to accurately cover the extent and nature of Israel’s crimes in Gaza. A comprehensive study published this year, which analysed 35,000 pieces of BBC content, found that the organisation affords Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage per fatality, and that it has consistently omitted crucial context from its reporting and shut down allegations of genocide.
We spoke with Callum about how he became involved in Palestine, what kind of action he’d like to see other young people take, and why we should all be willing to make things awkward.
It came from the unbiased sounding "Centre for Media Monitoring." In fact, it was created by the virulently anti-Israel Muslim Council of Britain and its report was created together with the Council of
Arab-British Understanding. The CfMM rails against any coverage of Islamist terrorism in the media and complains about the very term "Islamist" when the media refers to Boko Haram, ISIS or Hamas.
The CfMM looked at thousands of BBC reports using a methodology that was suffused with bias in its assumptions. For example, it considers every death in Gaza to be a "murder," it calls the war in Gaza a "genocide," it considers every Israeli interviewed to be pro-Israel. Based on these flawed premises and many others about how news is reported, it "found" that the BBC was biased towards Israel.
Dazed took this extraordinarily poorly devised study and promoted it as true, and then gives a worshipful interview with a person whose hate for Israel supersedes everything else.
This is just a small example of anti-Israel bias. But when multiplied by the hundreds and thousands, it is framed to give the impression that there is no other narrative at all - the entire point is not only to promote lies but also to delegitimize and marginalize the truth.
It isn't a conspiracy. No antisemites are sitting in a back room orchestrating these types of lies and media campaigns. No, it is even worse - it is the mainstreaming of antisemitic attitudes that is independently promoted by today's Jew-haters to cross-promote each other. Their methods o framing lies as obvious truths reach more and more people, gaining more adherents and therefore more "independent" voices to add to the tsunami of hate.
One can fight a small group of conspiracy theorists. But this is decentralized, peer-to-peer hate, where its cumulative strength cannot be fought with fact checks and bias exposure.
Fighting this new antisemitism needs an entire sea change in understanding how it has gotten to this point and in what must be done to counter it at its very root.
When academia, journalism, activism and politics all converge on demonizing the world's only Jewish state as uniquely evil, the problem goes way beyond media bias or corrupt curricula.
This isn’t about one college student whose anti-Israel message went viral. It’s about the machine that platforms and promotes him as heroic. There were years of priming the public to transform this bigot into a hero. And unless we address the root - the intellectual, ideological, philosophical, structural and methodological failures that power it - exposing bias will never be enough.
The Council decided today to renew the mandates of two civilian missions under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
Following the coordinated strategic review conducted by the Political and Security Committee and on the basis of the invitations from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Council decided to extend the mandates of the EU Border Assistance Mission at the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah) and of the EU Police Mission in the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) for one year until 30 June 2026. The missions will have the opportunity to develop their mandates on the ground through a flexible, realistic and scalable approach, with a view to adapting to future evolutions.
EUPOL COPPS was launched in January 2006 and it is headed by Ms Karin Limdal. The mission’s current mandate focuses on support to the Palestinian Civil Police and wider justice institutions, in the areas of policing and wider criminal justice arrangements. Through its contribution to security and justice sector reform, the mission supports efforts to improve the security of the Palestinian population and to reinforce the rule of law.
So for nearly 20 years, EU experts have been advising the Palestinian Authority police and justice departments, at a cost of about $12.6 million a year.
But what, exactly do they do?
Here's a video they made recently that pretends to answer that question, but doesn't actually say anything.
Looking at their social media, we see a lot of activity - meeting with Palestinian officials, coordinating workshops, holding seminars, creating programs on things like cybercrime and domestic violence.
But what is unanswered is why does the PA need the EU to do these things? How do we now that previous initiatives made a difference to Palestinians? What are the metrics for success, and how well did EUBAM COPPS meet those metrics? When would their mission be considered a success? Has the Palestinian police become more responsible, with fewer deadly incidents or human rights abuses? Have there been any actual reforms instead of more and more seminars about reforms?
Any international initiative like this requires metrics. EUBAM has a mission in Moldova-Ukraine that issues annual reports showing what they have been doing with charts and tables - but no such annual report is issued for the two Palestinian EUBAM missions.
It appears that there is a feedback loop happening here that no one is discussing. The PA has no interest in improving its police but needs to show progress to keep getting EU money, so it indulges the clueless Europeans and pretends to go along with these endless initiatives that make little or no difference in the lives of Palestinians. The EU wants to pretend that the PA is a mature government that really needs all of these things they provide, yet somehow have not yet figured out how to do it on their own after having their own government for over 30 years now.
The EU is condescending towards the Palestinians, treating them like third world savages that need help to do basic work like fighting domestic violence. The PA is condescending towards the EU, treating them as a cash cow as long as they make a pretense that they care about performance - but not enough to tell the EU, thanks but we can handle it from here on our own.
A nation that desires independence will not want to remain dependent on outside experts forever. They have had 20 years to send Palestinian students to study criminal justice from the finest universities in the world, receive doctorates, and come back to improve the Palestinian police and courts with the latest Western standards. Why haven't they? Why hasn't EUPOL COPPS given them a deadline to do exactly this?
The EU desperately believes that a two state solution will solve problems and not cause more. The PA has a great interest in promoting that fantasy. The EU wants to pretend that throwing money at the problem will solve it; the PA wants EU money.
It is a symbiotic relationship. And that is why there are no metrics or criteria for success - because no one wants success, they just want to keep the situation at the status quo of the EU feeling righteous and the PA acting just helpless enough to justify the money train - not just for this mission but for the billions that the EU provides to the PA.
It is like when the Palestinians join international conventions but don't do anything to adhere to them. They want the trappings of a state but not the responsibility for one - and they are happy to outsource their governance to Europeans who want to feel like white saviors.
If someone actually looked at the PA and saw that there has been no significant progress in any area in the past 30 years, then people might ask hard questions. Everyone, except for EU taxpayers, prefers to keep things as they are.
Friday’s “famine in Gaza” announcement by a UN-backed agency is simply the latest effort to preserve Hamas’ rule over the territory on supposedly humanitarian grounds as Israel reluctantly begins to go after the terror group’s major enclaves in Gaza City.
Note how the “experts” of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification outfit claim to have sufficient ground-level access to ordinary Gazans to determine, for example, that 30% of children are severely malnourished — by measuring the upper-arm widths of a statistically significant random sample of the kids! — even though somehow no one is able to produce photographic examples of Gazan starvation that stands up to elementary fact-checking.
Not to mention all the double-talk about Israel refusing to allow international aid to enter the war zone, when in fact it’s only insisting that supplies go in with armed guards to prevent immediate seizure by the terrorists.
More deception: “News” that Hamas is willing to return the remaining hostages in a ceasefire agreement.
Yes, if Hamas is willing to turn over the living hostages now, some deal may be possible.
Short of that, it has nothing real to offer, and Israel should proceed with taking Gaza City and wiping the terror group from the earth.
Time and again, Hamas has taunted Israel by offering the release of its captives, but inevitably on unacceptable terms, namely that Israel agree to leave it in power in Gaza, with security guarantees and UN backing.
No country in the world but Israel would be expected to allow a death cult dressed up as a normal state to operate on its border: The Oct. 7, 2023, attacks should have ended forever the fantasy that the Jewish state can coexist with Hamas.
All the Western leaders sanctimoniously vowing to recognize a Palestinian state forget that a ceasefire was in place on Oct. 6; Hamas broke it by murdering 1,200 innocents and kidnapping hundreds.
Blue and White Party head Benny Gantz called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman to form a temporary “government of redemption for the hostages” for a period of six months, during a press conference on Saturday.
Gantz said that the temporary government should focus on two primary goals: securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and passing the controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft law.
The party leader also said that elections should be scheduled following the completion of these objectives.
“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” said Gantz. “Within weeks, we will formulate an Israeli service outline that recruits our ultra-Orthodox brothers and eases the burden on those already serving.
“Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset accordingly,” he said. “That is what is right for Israel.”
Gantz addressed anticipated criticism of the move and dismissed claims that his initiative was politically motivated. He underscored that the proposal was solely for the purpose of rescuing the hostages and not to “save” Netanyahu’s government.
“I know, soon the poison factories will get to work. They will say I want to save Netanyahu. That is not true: I want to save the hostages,” he said.
“Some will say I am doing this because of the polls. I will remind them that I joined governments twice: once with 33 mandates and the second time when my party was leading in the polls.”
Over the years, I must have read tens of thousands of pages devoted to the topic of antisemitism, and I’ve yet to find a better explanation for its persistence across the centuries than this one: “Everything seems impossible or terribly difficult without the providential appearance of antisemitism. It enables everything to be arranged, smoothed over and simplified. If one were not an antisemite through patriotism, one would become one through a simple sense of opportunity.”
The author of those words was himself an antisemite—Charles Maurras, a 19th- and early 20th-century French Catholic monarchist. Maurras founded the Action Française movement and became one of the more visible tormentors of Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish army officer falsely convicted of espionage in 1894, following a trial driven by the burning antisemitism inside the courtroom and on the streets outside.
Maurras’s legacy is deeply relevant to the character of antisemitism today. For one thing, we live in an age that distrusts complexity and nuance, reaching for utopian solutions because “compromise” is a dirty word. The profound shift from traditional media to an endless stream of personality-driven, no-holds-barred posts, videos and talk shows has rewarded the loudly ignorant.
As is always the case in the early stages of a cultural transformation, the participants revel in their ability to finally say what was previously unsayable. When it comes to Jews, nothing escapes their vengeful scrutiny—not Israel’s right to exist, not the Holocaust, not the emotional and political support for Israel among Jewish communities outside the Jewish state.
Then there is Maurras’s well-observed and cynical point about opportunity. The gallery of fools and morons we have to contend with—among them political commentator Candace Owens, for Fox News cable-TV host Tucker Carlson, English broadcaster Piers Morgan and their ludicrous guests—aren’t so dumb as to have not sniffed out an opportunity here. The receptiveness to antisemitism that remains stubbornly embedded within non-Jewish societies has been skillfully exploited by this crowd for commercial gain and brand exposure, now reaching the point where we need to stop seeing them as critics to respond to and start seeing them as enemies to defeat.
Most importantly of all, Maurras functions as a precursor to the antisemitism we are confronting today. It doesn’t really matter that none of these people will have heard of him. Even if they don’t realize it, they have picked up on the trend he pioneered.
While Maurras was a supporter of the collaborationist Vichy regime who was imprisoned in France after World War II, his antisemitism was not the Nazi kind, obsessed with pseudoscientific “racial” categories. Rather, Maurras was a political antisemite. For him, post-revolutionary France had abandoned the noble moorings of French governance in favor of an alien republic serving Protestants, Freemasons and, above all, Jews. An early advocate of the “dual-loyalty” conspiracy theory, Maurras regarded French and Jewish interests as diametrically opposed, making the Jew the natural enemy of France.
This trope, which flies in the face of the empirical evidence of Jewish soldiers, Jewish diplomats and Jewish politicians loyally serving the countries of which they are citizens, has been eagerly grasped by parts of today’s American right, as well as most of the left. Which brings me, unfortunately, to the subject of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
October 7 presented the Israeli left with a daunting challenge: how to prevent the Hamas massacre from sounding the death knell of its most cherished dream, the so-called two-state solution. Having witnessed the vast majority of the Palestinian public cheer Hamas’ savagery, the last thing Israelis wanted to hear was plans for future partition of their land, never mind a peace agreement. Faced with this popular rejection of its central platform, the left first had to focus on preventing the right from consolidating its growing majority, to avert total collapse.
But how could the left leverage an event that showed its side was wrong in its fundamental assumptions about Israel’s neighbors against the right, whose position was vindicated? The answer is simple: Lay Oct. 7 at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s feet.
And so, the left launched a campaign to blame the man who had presciently warned that Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 would give rise to a terrorist “Hamas state.” Netanyahu’s accurate understanding of Israel’s neighbors didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Oct. 7 happened on his watch.
The campaign required a new narrative that tailored the historical record to suit the left’s political objective. A recent example of this revisionism is an 11,000-word New York Times Magazine piece by Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, and Natan Odenheimer, titled “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power.” The piece presents itself as a work of investigative journalism, with new revelations and intimate details “reported here for the first time,” along with scores of interviews and documented sources.
The piece puts forward a neat storyline that echoes the Israeli left’s articles of faith: Netanyahu could have ended the war with a hostage deal in April 2024. However, he keeps prolonging the war to satisfy the radical, irrational hawkish wing of this coalition, all to stay in power. The real reason Netanyahu is desperate to remain in office, the piece argues, is so that he can appoint a new attorney general and thereby quash his prosecution on corruption charges.
Only, there isn’t a single true link in this imaginary chain of political logic. Netanyahu never wanted to end the war with a hostage deal. While the prime minister has pursued a deal for the release of the hostages, the caveat was his absolute refusal to end the war short of achieving all of Israel’s declared goals: the dismantling of Hamas as a military and governing force, the return of all hostages, both the dead and the living, and the assurance that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel’s security. Meanwhile, Hamas never agreed to anything other than a complete Israeli surrender with the full withdrawal of the IDF from every last inch of Gaza, along with funds to reconstruct the strip under its rule, and internationally binding guarantees for the survival of its regime—conditions the overwhelming majority of Israelis would never agree to.
The truth is, nothing would serve Netanyahu politically better than ending the war, so long as it ends in victory. The longer the war drags on without victory, the more support he bleeds, especially among his base. In other words, both The New York Times Magazine’s depiction of Israel’s interests and its assumptions about Netanyahu’s political calculations are wrong.
The same goes for the assertions about Netanyahu’s coalition partners, which the piece gets backwards. The so-called radical wing of the coalition has been pressing for a swift end to the war through a decisive victory. The criticism it has leveled at Netanyahu has been over his prolonging the war with endless negotiations over yet another temporary deal that prioritizes the hostages over Israel’s victory. Had Netanyahu moved to satisfy his coalition partners, we would now be in the final leg of this war, single-mindedly focused on crushing whatever remains of Hamas. Of course, Israel did not take this course of action during the period described in the magazine’s alternative history.
The imaginary account of The New York Times entirely distorts how Netanyahu has had to struggle to make sure Israel doesn’t end the war prematurely, before achieving its objectives. From the moment it began, Netanyahu came under overwhelming pressure to shut down Israel’s military campaign. He faced the combined, and often coordinated, efforts of the Iran-appeasing Biden administration, Israel’s peacenik opposition, a leftist media obsessed with overthrowing him over any other consideration, the weaponization of criminal law designed to impair his ability to govern, and a reluctant IDF brass that preferred a compromise deal over the reoccupation of Gaza.
In the Guardian and elsewhere she has expounded her low-resolution understanding of a foreign conflict into which she seeks to throw herself gleefully. Recently the group Palestine Action was proscribed by the British government as a terrorist group. Rooney was one of the ‘celebrities’ who chose to lobby against this decision. She said: ‘Palestine Action is not an armed group. It has never been responsible for any fatalities and does not pose any risk to public safety.’ Which isn’t quite true. The group has claimed responsibility for hundreds of incidents across the UK, many of which have turned violent. Last summer, Palestine Action activists broke into the Bristol HQ of defence technology firm Elbit Systems. Two police officers were struck with a sledgehammer and an employee suffered head injuries. One of the officers was taken to hospital, while his colleagues seized sledgehammers, axes and other weapons.
In June, Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged aircraft. Estimates of the cost of the damage run from £7 million to more than £30 million. One of those allegedly involved, Muhammad Umer Khalid, 22, faces charges relating to criminal damage and the compromising of this country’s security. One of the group’s heads faces prosecution over a speech he made on 8 October 2023, in which he said that the massacre of Jews in Israel (named by Hamas ‘the Al-Aqsa flood’), which was then still going on, should be emulated everywhere. Or as he put it: ‘When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa flood, we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world.’
Still, Rooney claims that a ban on Palestine Action constitutes an ‘alarming curtailment of free speech’. The other day in the Irish Times, Rooney made herself the martyr in all this, writing ominously: ‘My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets.’ In a similarly self-important vein, she declared that she intended to go on supporting Palestine Action in any way she could, including by donating royalties from her books and TV adaptations.
Although she seems to hear the jackboots of the Stasi British police at her door, Rooney is of course Irish, and appears to live in Ireland. And so wittingly or otherwise she joins a long list of Irish public figures willing to throw themselves into the middle of a row – any row – so long as it allows them the warm, fuzzy feeling of continuing to be part of the most oppressed people ever.
Anas Al-Sharif, whose death last week triggered the current wave of international opprobrium, was such an individual. While both CNN and the BBC have confirmed that he previously served as a Hamas propaganda operative, he went on to join Al Jazeera, becoming a recognizable face to millions in the Arab world as he broadcast from Gaza throughout the current war.
In October 2024, the IDF released a ream of personnel files, salary records, and other documents captured in Gaza proving that six Al Jazeera employees were active Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operatives. Al-Sharif was identified as the commander of a Hamas rocket launching squad and a member of the group’s Nukhba Force — the elite unit that spearheaded the October 7 attack — and was shown to be on Hamas’s payroll. Al Jazeera angrily rejected the charges, claiming that they were being used as a pretext to target its journalists, and continued employing Al-Sharif and the others.
After Al-Sharif and his colleagues were killed in an Israeli airstrike, CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg declared the killings to have been unlawful. “International law is very clear on this point that the only individuals who are legitimate targets during a war are active combatants,” she told the BBC. “Having worked as a media advisor for Hamas, or indeed for Hamas currently, does not make you an active combatant,” she added. Her comments were later echoed by Foreign Press Association President Ian Williams, who told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga that he “[doesn’t] care if Al-Sharif was in Hamas or not,” saying that “Hamas is a political organization” and “we don’t kill journalists for being Republicans or Democrats or, in Britain, Labour Party.”
But that comparison is plainly ridiculous and it is simply untrue that only “active combatants” can be targeted in wartime. Under international humanitarian law, an individual who performs a continuous combat function (CCF) is viewed as having lost his or her civilian status and is indeed considered a legitimate military target. In point of fact, that standard has been applied in numerous conflicts — from the Kosovo War to the Iraq War to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine — to justify the targeting of propaganda officials and functionaries whose activities contributed directly to war efforts. Even a “media advisor” for Hamas — or a propaganda operative for one of its media outlets, like the individuals discussed above — could indeed be targeted if he or she had a CCF, meaning he or she was fully integrated into the terrorist group and was continuously engaged in hostilities.
Yet according to the evidence produced by Israel, Al-Sharif was no mere “media advisor” — he was an actual combatant on behalf of a recognized terrorist group, having commanded a rocket squad and served as a member of Hamas’s commando force. There is no question, then, that he was a legitimate military target.
Which begs the question: Why are media organizations and journalists’ associations defending terrorists?
While it is only natural for there to be a certain circling of wagons at wartime, and while we would expect these groups to stand up for the rights of actual journalists facing various threats in the line of duty, that cannot explain why, time after time, both media outlets and journalists’ groups have turned a blind eye to the gross misdeeds of the individuals they have chosen to protect.
Journalists certainly deserve protection and Israel’s approach to the international media throughout this war — including its ill-considered and continuously detrimental decision not to permit foreign journalists to enter Gaza freely — has been imperfect at best. But by accepting the outlandish notion that terrorists who exploit journalistic cover to engage in hostilities deserve the same protections as actual journalists, these groups betray both their profession and the very individuals they are meant to represent, endangering them and making a mockery of their work. Rather than dismissing or ridiculing honest critiques by media watchdogs, these groups would do well to take evidence of wrongdoing seriously and consider whether the individuals in question are indeed deserving of protection — or of the title “journalist” at all.
Not every journalist can be expected to uphold the ethical standard set by Marie Colvin and others, who sacrificed their lives to protect their subjects, but surely those who go to the other extreme — who exploit their self-identification as journalists to cause, rather than prevent, harm — are worthy of our condemnation and our scorn, not our defense.
A group of 16 Democratic senators, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who votes with the Democrats, wrote to Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, questioning Israel’s claim that Anas al-Sharif was a Hamas member posing as a journalist.
“The recent targeted Israeli strike on a group of journalists and media workers, which killed six journalists, including well-known Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, is just one example of attacks on reporters in Gaza and part of a pattern of violence that has silenced the voices of far too many Gazan journalists,” wrote the senators, led by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is Jewish.
“Israel has not provided convincing evidence for its claim that al-Sharif was a Hamas militant,” the senators wrote. “Absent a compelling explanation of the military objective for this attack, it appears Israel is publicly admitting to targeting and killing journalists who have shown the world the scale of suffering in Gaza, which would be a violation of international law.”
Israeli officials have publicized records suggesting that al-Sharif led a Hamas cell and was part of a Hamas phone directory. The Jewish state has also published photos of al-Sharif with senior Hamas members, including Yahya Sinwar, who led the terror group until he was killed in October.
Israel said it has more information about al-Sharif that is classified, and that several other journalists who were killed with him were also terrorists.
The BBC reported that al-Sharif worked with Hamas’s media unit prior to the war.
“What steps has the State Department taken to ensure that the Israel Defense Forces, a major recipient of U.S. security assistance, reforms its rules of engagement to mitigate harm to journalists?” the senators wrote.
In addition to Schatz and Sanders, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) signed the letter.
On 22 August 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released an analysis declaring famine in Gaza City. Although the IPC has previously confirmed famine in other crises, this was the first time such a declaration was made for Gaza — and the first time it rested on evidence that fell far short of the standard normally required. Famine classifications are intended to be exceptional, applied only when mortality and malnutrition rates clearly and indisputably exceed the most extreme benchmarks.
In this case, however, the declaration was issued not only without evidence that would justify it under the IPC’s own criteria, but also in contradiction to more recent data that was publicly available before the report's release yet was ignored in the analysis. Instead of reflecting current conditions, the classification relied on outdated figures while downplaying or disregarding newer information that directly undermined the famine classification. Among the evidence available by the alleged cut-off date of 15 August 2025 — but omitted or marginalised in the IPC report — were:
July malnutrition prevalence remained below "famine threshold": the complete analysis of July MUAC screenings, released by the Nutrition Cluster on 8 August, showed average malnutrition rates well below the 15% threshold. Nevertheless, the IPC disregarded these full — and lower — results, basing its famine classification instead on an earlier, partial dataset that covered only about half of the children screened that month (for a detailed explanation and sources see below this introduction).
Massive increase in aid deliveries and distributions: starting from the second half of July, there was a sharp rise in the volume of food and humanitarian supplies entering Gaza, accompanied by expanded distribution mechanisms that reached much wider segments of the population.
Dramatic drop in market prices: food prices, which had spiked in June and the first weeks of July, started to decline in the end of July and fell steeply in first weeks of August — a clear sign of improving availability and access.
Details about measures implemented by Israel in recent months and reported in real time - including daily humanitarian pauses (mentioned in a misleading manner as a single event), opening of crossing and supply routes, fixing of water and electricity lines, and more (see full details in this document by COGAT).
In addition, IPC experts claimed Gaza City had crossed the famine mortality threshold by assuming vast numbers of unreported malnutrition deaths — yet the figure they cited, six reported deaths per day, is thirty times lower than the famine threshold set by IPC methodology, underlining the implausibility of their claim.
By disregarding this evidence and proceeding instead on the basis of selective and obsolete figures, the IPC placed its methodological integrity in serious doubt.
Yet this declaration cannot be understood in isolation. It represents the culmination of a pattern that has unfolded throughout the IPC’s reporting on Gaza since October 2023: thresholds blurred until they lost their meaning, principles applied inconsistently, and projections repeatedly framed to highlight worst-case outcomes. The Gaza City famine classification is simply the starkest manifestation of this erosion of standards.
The discussion below provides a detailed explanation of how malnutrition rates were misrepresented, together with an overview of the IPC system, the principles it is meant to uphold, and the ways in which those safeguards have broken down in practice. It also reviews the methodological flaws that have characterised IPC reporting on Gaza since the beginning of the war.
When the data doesn’t support the narrative – ignore it
One of the key arguments used by the IPC’s Famine Review Committee (FRC) to classify Gaza City as Phase 5 “Famine” was that in July the rate of acute malnutrition among children (GAM by MUAC) allegedly reached 12.7–19.9 percent, above the 15% famine threshold. This was cited as one of only two criteria (out of three) for which the IPC claimed there was clear evidence that famine thresholds had been crossed.
That figure, however, was derived from only about half of the data actually collected in July — five sub-samples covering 7,519 children described on pages 49-50 of the FRC report. Their weighted averages ranged from 12.7 to 19.9 percent, with a combined weighted average of roughly 16 percent, just above the threshold.
By contrast, a later Nutrition Cluster presentation released on 8 August reported the full July sample of 15,749 children. Those results showed unweighted and weighted GAM rates of 13.5% and 12.2%, respectively — both well below the famine threshold.
In other words, the IPC was aware that the complete July data placed Gaza City’s GAM rate below the threshold. Nevertheless, it based its famine classification on the earlier, partial sample — concealing the fact that even by its own (methodologically questionable) MUAC measure, Gaza City did not cross the famine threshold in July.
If the IPC had acknowledged this, its entire famine classification for Gaza City would have collapsed.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a tool associated with some 25 global partners, including U.N. agencies, said on Friday that it confirmed with “reasonable evidence” that there has been “famine” in Gaza since Aug. 15.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death,” per a new IPC report.
“Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis,” it stated.
The Israeli government stated that “although the IPC has previously confirmed famine in other crises, this was the first time such a declaration was made for Gaza, and the first time it rested on evidence that fell far short of the standard normally required.”
“Famine classifications are intended to be exceptional, applied only when mortality and malnutrition rates clearly and indisputably exceed the most extreme benchmarks,” it stated.
The Jewish state said that the “famine” determination contradicts recent, publicly available data and uses “outdated figures while downplaying or disregarding newer information that directly undermined the famine classification.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry stated that the IPC “bent its own rules to fit Hamas’s campaign. They lowered famine thresholds, ignored criteria and laundered Hamas lies.”
“Meanwhile, reality tells a different story: over 100,000 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the war began. Markets are stocked, food prices are falling,” it said. “The IPC could not find famine, so they forged one.”
“You know who is starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilized Hamas savages,” stated Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Maybe the over-fed terrorists could share some of their warehouse full they stole with hungry people, especially the hostages.”
António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, stated that there were “no more excuses,” and an “immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages and full, unfettered humanitarian access” were necessary.
“Just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: ‘famine,’” he stated. “This is not a mystery. It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself.”
The IPC report is based on data from July 1 to Aug. 15 and states that the threshold to determine a “famine” has been met despite a lack of mortality figures available.
THE leader of Southend Council has contacted Essex Police as he asks them to block a planned protest on Southend High Street later this month.
Daniel Cowan, Labour leader of Southend Council has issued a formal statement about a planned protest on August 30 which he slams as an "antagonistic stunt", condemning "racist language" used to describe Southend.
According to the council leader, the demonstration is being promoted as a protest in a "horrific Zionist area", and said the actions of protesters at a previous march in April "saw Jewish families harassed".
Hmmm. I wonder what a "horrific Zionist area" looks like.
I have not yet been able to find that quote from anti-Israel activists in Southend, but I did find this TikTok that they posted.
It shows as well as anything I can say that there is nothing "pro-Palestinian" about these people. Besides the idiocy of the video itself, listen to the audio.
"Fucking hate Israel.
I hate fucking Israel.
I fucking fucking hate Israel.
I hate Israel, and I'm saying it."
I don't hear anything about "Palestine"!
Antisemitism is a mental disease that no one is trying to cure.
Last week, more food was stolen in Gaza - by far - than any previous week measured by the UN since it began to keep track on May 19.
But that isn't the only Hamas record.
The percentage of collected food aid that was stolen - which was at about 85% from May through July - reached an astounding 99% last week. That eclipses the 95% from the previous week.
10,352 tons of food and nutrition aid was collected. 10,237 tons of that was stolen by Hamas and others.
Put another way: last week the UN coordinated 2,500 more tons of aid than the week before - but the amount of aid that reached Gazans was 71% less than the week before (115 tons vs. 401 tons.)
The 99% figure seems to reflect a more organized process for stealing. It appears likely that these aren't local gangs but a far more comprehensive theft operation, one which only Hamas has the capability of mounting. It sees that the UN has bent over backwards to not single out Hamas for stealing food so now it can do it more brazenly.
Aid agencies think that they can solve the hunger problem in Gaza by flooding Gaza with aid. They are assuming that this would make black market prices go down. But Hamas looks at more aid as more profit - if they steal virtually all the aid, no matter how much enters, they control the entire market and the prices. So while perhaps independent bandits lose some incentive to hijack trucks, Hamas' incentive goes up. It is entirely possible that the higher percentage of food stolen last week indicates this new economic dynamic in Gaza - a shift from gangs to more Hamas thieves.
Also, the 99% figure makes one wonder if workers at the NGOs in Gaza aren't being paid off to tell Hamas when and where the aid trucks will travel. Normally one would expect increasing aid would make it more difficult to steal an even higher proportion of it, so it appears plausible that there is cooperation, kickbacks or coercion between Hamas and the aid workers.
The story doesn't end here.
The international community seems quite unconcerned that virtually all the aid they send to Gaza is stolen before it reaches the people - and then Gazans have to pay for it to receive any food at all. The stories about aid being stolen were in the media three weeks ago, yet there have been no statements I am aware of from governments who donate to Gaza expressing concern.
Similarly, the NGOs like the World Central Kitchen, the ICRC and UNICEF - always quick to blame Israel for any lack of food in Gaza - have never even publicly admitted that almost none of the food they send to Gaza reaches their own people on the ground. They are certainly aware of this - but they don't say a word, leaving researchers to tease the data out of UNOPS reports.
Why the hell not? If they care about feeding Gazans, shouldn't they be in the forefront of condemning the massive amounts of theft?
I dislike conspiracy theories, but the utter silence of the world and NGOs over the amount of food being likely stolen by Hamas is hard to ignore.
(Note: UNOPS updates its data sometimes weeks after the days in question. My figures before 7/28 are from previous analysis, I did not check if they have been updated. I did not separate food and nutrition aid from other types like health and sanitation before then. However, food aid is typically over 99% in weight so the pre-August numbers should be largely correct. Food aid is more likely to be stolen than hygiene and other aid so the percentages may be a little off in earlier dates. Also, I am starting my weeks on Mondays, because that was the day that aid resumed on 5/19.)
Here is part of a speech that French President Emmanuel Macron gave at the town of Saint-Lô last year ahead of the anniversary of D-Day:
American and British planes targeted Saint-Lô, a road hub, as part of the grand plan to neutralize communication routes to prevent German reinforcements from repelling the landing, and the city, with its station and garrison of a thousand enemy soldiers at the Bellevue barracks, was a necessary target, as were the coastal towns along the dunes hit before Saint-Lô, as well as those also struck that night: Coutances, Flers, Lisieux, Caen, Vire, Condé-sur-Noireau, Pont-l’Évêque. Saint-Lô, a necessary target, whose inhabitants the Allies thought they had warned by dropping leaflets urging them to leave before the bombs, leaflets alas scattered far from the city in the bad winds of that June night. Saint-Lô, a martyred town sacrificed to liberate France.
Up to 20,000 French civilians were killed during the Normandy invasion in 1944 - by the Allies. AP last year described scenes of civilians being bombed while digging out other bombing victims.
And the bombed out cities then looked a lot like Gaza today.
It is more than a little ironic that the President of France is willing to justify the deaths of tens of thousands of French civilians in order for the Allies to win a war - but extends no such understanding into Gaza where the militants are even more embedded in the cities than the Nazis were in France.
He emphasizes that the Allies tried to drop leaflets, but never mentions that Israel does far more than that to minimize civilian losses. No, the Allies of 1944 considered the civilians on their own side to be a necessary sacrifice to win a war against an evil enemy. There were no trials of Allied generals who made these terrible decisions.
In fact, the civilian deaths were swept under the rug for 70 years. France never even held a national ceremony for the civilian victims of the Allied invasion until 2014.
Can you even imagine the uproar that would follow if Israel called Hamas' civilian human shields a "necessary sacrifice to liberate Gaza"?
Hamas is no less evil than the Nazis. The only reason it has not built gas chambers is because of ability, not desire. October 7 proved that Hamas is just as dedicated to wiping out all Jews in Israel as Hitler was to wipe out all Jews in Europe.
And it is a supremely moral act to do everything possible to stop Hamas, even if that means some civilians who are in the way get killed, too.
This was the calculus of the Allies, a decision being praised by the president of the country that lost so many. Israel's military decisions are exactly the same - yet the world reaction is the polar opposite.
We should think deeply about the aesthetics of anti-Zionist ritual—about how much it owes to the liturgical imagination of Christian Europe, where the sacred victim is elevated for adoration and the scapegoat is driven back into exile. Christ is paraded before the crowd in agony, while the Jew is cast out as the enemy of love.
In the anti-Zionist moral cosmology, the “suffering Palestinian” has become the consecrated victim whose pain redeems the sins of empire, while the Jew, displaced from that role, is rendered the contaminant to be expelled. This figure functions as the key symbol through which anti-Zionism unifies all the world’s evils into its constructed image of “Israel,” the source of all wrong. The claim that Jesus was Palestinian is not only a silly anachronism. It’s also a symbolic anchor.
Like the coming together of two rivers, the Islamist figure of the shahid— the martyr, suicide bomber, and human shield—now flows seamlessly into the icon of the Palestinian Christ, until West and East resonate together in one shared cult of death.
These symbols, tropes, and rhetorics form the backbone of anti-Zionist ideology: its sacrament of accusation, its passion play rewritten for the age of NGOs, academic conferences, and algorithmic amplification. Anti-Zionism has gone institutional, now woven into the worldview of Western elites, which frames the expulsion of the Jewish state from the community of nations not as a tragic necessity, but as a redemptive consummation—proof that the world still knows how to purify itself through pogroms and revolution.
And yet, despite this emerging megastructure of institutional anti-Zionism, its adherents have immunized themselves against recognizing their majoritarian power over Jews, through a familiar conspiratorial reversal: the Jew no longer as a vulnerable minority, but as the symbol of global domination. The more Jews are imagined as “powerful,” the more powerful the accuser feels in attacking them. It is a transference of strength. The blandest bigotry, the erosion of all decent standards, and that raw commitment to believing the libels—these are enough to turn resentment into sanctimony, envy into enlightenment.
During the campus riots of 2023 to 2024, activists marshaled the aesthetics of protest as “dissent,” acting out the conspiracy that “Zionists” control universities and governments in the very performance of protesting against the Jews. The result is freedom of speech for the Gentiles, but not for Jews, who are met instead with social ostracism, exclusion, and the demand to renounce their collective identity. School rules, and liberal principles, break like dams in the face of anti-Zionism’s energetic floods of accusation.
Antisemitism-as-justice is raw power with a humanitarian face. It is the stirrings of totalitarianism and the flouting of the law, coded in the language of law, now jammed into academic settler-colonial theory’s jargon of libel. Legal and moral evaluations are cast aside, irrelevant before the fixed drama that casts the Jew as the genocidal settler and the Palestinian as the natural force of Indigenous resistance. Once the roles are set, every outcome is already decided. The show trial of the Jew is set.
So yes, the “humanitarians” may be seething with bitterness and corrosive envy—but they believe themselves righteous. In this respect, nothing has changed. The medieval priest defending Christ from the enemies of love itself, the Enlightenment reformer purging the stubborn particularist from the universal order, the Romantic moralist rescuing culture from aesthetic corruption—all saw themselves as defenders of justice. Anti-Zionism inherits the same role, transposed into the register of human rights and international law while destroying their foundations in the process.
When hatred wears the robes of justice, it is immune to moral appeal. It will always claim the higher ground because the hate itself is the proof of one’s virtue. It will call itself a critique, and you will be the defendant on trial.
That is what makes this antisemitism of righteousness so persistent and so dangerous: It not only distorts the truth about Jews but also corrodes the very space in which truth and justice could be spoken at all.
Now, to be clear, I believe that Israel’s actions to defeat Hamas, which massacred over 1,200 people, raped women, and took 251 hostages, are righteous. But let’s just tease out the argument made by Friedman and Patinkin, and echoed by others, and assume that Israel’s actions in Gaza are making a lot of people very angry. In any other case, the left would strenuously oppose anybody who lashed out at all members of a group for actions taken by some members of the group. Yet when it comes to Jews, this somehow no longer applies.
As an example, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, there was a huge emphasis on the idea that people should not take out their anger on Arabs and Muslims. This wasn’t even a sentiment confined to Democrats. With the rubble still smoldering at Ground Zero and search and rescue efforts still underway, Rudy Giuliani warned against engaging in group blame against Arab communities in New York City; George W. Bush talked about Islam as a “religion of peace.”
Similarly, after October 7, progressives weren’t screaming that Hamas’s actions put a target on the back of Muslims everywhere. They were, instead, blaming Israel for creating the conditions that led to the Hamas attacks, or trying to restrain Israel from responding. Had American Jews started harassing Muslims leaving mosques in the wake of the attacks, the left-wing outrage would have been against the Jews, not against Hamas.
Yet when it comes to Israel, and to violent criminals venting their anger by carrying out attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions all over the world, the left is directing its ire at Israel rather than on the actual perpetrators.
The reality is that a lot of people in the world want to do harm to Jews, and while the excuses may change, this has been the case for thousands of years. Does the left really need a refresher on how secure world Jewry was in the years prior to the founding of Israel in 1948? Are we to believe that its first 75 years of existence did not inflame antisemitism everywhere, and that this started to become a danger only after its response to October 7?
What exactly is “Slam Frank,” the purported hip-hop musical that reimagines the Holocaust’s most famous victim as a pansexual Latinx girl today?
Is it a real show with real actors and real songs constructing a real story for real audiences? Or is it an elaborate social media prank designed to pillory the left and rage-bait the right? Or could it be both?
The show’s Instagram account, its primary engine of promotion, has stoked the confusion.
Co-creator Andrew Fox posts snippets of songs, rapping in character as Anne Frank — or Anita Franco, as she’s named in the play — about being “straight from the barrio” and calling people “gringos.”
“Storytellers like me are trying to make the Holocaust diverse,” Fox said in one Instagram post. “Because you watch movie after movie after movie and everybody looks like this — white, white, white,” he remarked, pointing to a still from “Schindler’s List.”
The posts range from sneak peeks of the show to broader, seemingly tongue-in-cheek commentary. Fox, who is Jewish, frequently posts on the account about being a Latinx artist (through his father’s Ecuadorian third wife) and his efforts to “decolonize Broadway.” Another post satirizing inclusivity issues decries the fatphobia of both Broadway theaters and Nazi concentration camps. (“Neither of these environments were built to accommodate people of size.”)
Fox and the “Slam Frank” team have built a social media campaign that is, like the premise of the show itself, inclusive to a fault. Many don’t know what to make of it, or whether this build-up is leading toward a real production.
“You guys are joking right?” one Instagram user commented. “I genuinely can’t tell in this political landscape.”
“You can’t actually think that making this is a good idea,” another user pleaded in a DM.
Among the at least dozens, and often hundreds of comments on each “Slam Frank” post, you can be sure to find commenters asking something along the lines of, Is this real??
But lately, as the show has opened workshops to critics and sold out the first eight nights of its upcoming Off-Broadway run, its devoted but somewhat befuddled fan base has started to trust that there might really be a full performance ahead — one that bears out its billing as “The Diary of Anne Frank” meets “Hamilton” meets “South Park.” According to Fox, the show will start a developmental run, meaning the script might still be tweaked for later performances, at Asylum NYC on September 17.
Israel must get its act together diplomatically, fast, and we should do so on two tracks at once.
First, we need an unapologetically assertive diplomatic campaign aimed at our closest allies. That means naming a senior special envoy with the full backing of the prime minister and war cabinet, empowered to engage Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Canberra, and Wellington daily.
The mission: align expectations ahead of September, reduce surprises, and ensure that any recognition moves are tethered to concrete conditions Israel can live with, including firm commitments on demilitarization, security coordination, and education against incitement.
Second, we must finally table a credible “day after” blueprint that other capitals can support. The outlines are not a mystery: release of all hostages as a starting point for any sustained ceasefire; a restructured, reformed, and demilitarized Palestinian Authority that can govern Gaza and the West Bank with outside oversight – or an international body that would govern Gaza until local forces are able to.
In addition, a phased security regime in and around Gaza that guarantees Israel’s defense and prevents rearmament; a reconstruction fund locked behind strict monitoring and anti-corruption safeguards; and a political horizon that ties progress to performance. The point is not to promise the moon but to demonstrate that Israel has a sequence and a strategy.
Regional diplomacy is essential. Israel should work with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia on a joint framework that couples hard security guarantees with practical steps for movement, trade, and governance. If Muslim partners sign onto a realistic plan, Western governments will find it easier to support Israel’s position, and recognition talk will be channeled into a path that strengthens moderation rather than rewarding violence.
None of this requires illusions about our enemies or denial about the trauma Israelis have endured since October 7. It does require clarity about the political marketplace we are operating in. The American public now tells pollsters that recognition should proceed.
September is around the corner. Israel should arrive with an agenda, not a reaction.
The Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas said earlier this week that it has delivered a "positive response" to mediators on the latest US proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal with Israel. The group's leaders, however, continue to talk about the need to continue the "armed struggle" against Israel.
"Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions will not lay down their weapons. We will continue to exert pressure on the Zionist enemy through the armed struggle. We met with the Palestinian factions in Cairo and agreed to escalate the confrontation and the struggle..... Resistance is the only way to confront the enemy." — Mahmoud Mardawi, senior Hamas official, palininfo.com, August 15, 2025.
Mardawi does not live in the Gaza Strip. He and most of the Hamas leaders are based in Qatar and Turkey.
When [Hamas's] leaders say the "armed struggle" will continue, they are actually threatening to launch more attacks similar to the October 7 atrocities.
If Hamas is indeed ready to accept a ceasefire, the reason is not because it wants to stop the death and destruction in the Gaza Strip. Rather, Hamas wants to ensure that it will be able to continue ruling the Gaza Strip after the war.... so it can pursue its jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and destroy Israel. This has been Hamas's goal since its establishment more than three decades ago.
In the weeks before the October 7 attack, Hamas leaders went to great lengths to create the false impression that they were not interested in engaging in another war with Israel.
Hamas has not – and will never – give up its goal of eliminating Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.
Even if a ceasefire deal is reached, the US and the rest of the international community must insist that Hamas be totally disarmed and removed from power. Hamas, unfortunately, really needs to be obliterated, and its leaders put on trial for committing war crimes against Israel and their own people.
Usually I write about Middle Eastern affairs, but the events of last week inspired me to write a little piece for Ukraine.
In 1948, Israel was brutally invaded by five Arab armies who tried to undo the Jewish state just like the invading Russians tried to undo the Ukrainian state. Just like the Russians, the Arabs didn't just want to take away some of the young state's territory but denied its very right to exist. Just like the Russians, they pretended at first to support a side in a civil war before outright invading. Just like the Russians, they learned that what looked like a soft target turned out to be a hard nut to crack. You have fought like lions and surprised the world and can take great pride in that!
Israel beat back the enemy after losing more than 1% of its population in the fighting. Unlike Ukraine, Israel faced an arms embargo from major Western powers, including the U.S. and UK. Also unlike Ukraine, Israelis had nowhere to go. They were literally with their back to the sea, surrounded by enemy on all sides. Israelis didn't have the option of becoming refugees; they could only win or die.
The war was not a total victory.
Some regions were overrun by Arabs and the Jewish population was expelled or massacred. Not only Israel had no guarantees the end of the war will lead to peace but Israel knew for a fact the Arabs will continue attacking it. Even when they didn't invade, they still launched small-scale attacks and engaged in terrorism and sabotage.
Still, after almost 10 months of fighting and only 78% of the territory, Israel accepted a ceasefire with no security guarantees with people who promised to destroy it. The nascent Jewish state then spent the next two decades preparing for war as best it could. In 1967, Israel surprised its enemies, crushed their armies, and had the victory it couldn't have in 1948. This didn't lead to peace either but greatly improved Israel's positions and status in the world.
Mounting Casualties May Force Hamas To Use Adult Fighters
Gaza City, August 21 - The impending Israeli offensive into this urban center in the Gaza Strip threatens to put such a strain on the Islamist terrorists invested in the city that they may have no choice but to staff their ranks here with over-18 militants, perhaps even men, a battalion commander acknowledged today.
Hamas has lost tens of thousands of fighters since their invasion of southern Israel in October 2023, putting serious pressure on the organization's manpower reserves, estimated before the war at about 30,000. Replacements have had insufficient time to train, relegating many of them to ancillary non-combat roles. If, as expected, Israel begins its Gaza City offensive soon, to put further pressure on Hamas to release the 50 remaining October 7 hostages and hostage bodies, Hamas will find itself forced to plug the line with adults, stated Hamza Ashraf.
"We are running out of front-line children," Ashraf admitted. "If you want front-line troops, you must recruit the most motivated candidates. But we have slim pickings now. As much as it pains me to say so, we might have to start putting adults in the line of fire, and maybe even adult males."
"In retrospect, we could have used fewer children in digging the tunnels," he observed. "Or, at the very least, we could have implemented some real safety protocols so we wouldn't lose so many. But that's water under the bunker. Right now, we have some agonizing decisions to make if we're going to resist this upcoming assault."
The challenge for Hamas commanders, analysts say, lies in conflicting interests: slowing or stopping Israel's offensive through the infliction of heavy casualties, which does not square with the strategic Hamas approach of putting children in harm's way to exploit the images of their death and suffering to demonize Israel and isolate the Jewish State internationally. While the strategic approach has enjoyed much success, it has not deterred Israel from a stated commitment to crush Hamas and permanently remove the threat of another October 7.
"We have always considered the Zionists weak, and weak-willed," explained a Khan Yunis operative who specializes in booby-trapping buildings to collapse on IDF soldiers. "Our expectations for the [October 7] Al Aqsa flood were that the Jews would start fleeing. That's our expectation after every operation, really. We have no other way of thinking about things. So we figure, enough dead Israeli soldiers and they'll stop fighting. Our allies in Qatar, Moscow, and NGOs are very good at fomenting 'domestic' opposition to continued fighting, and that's part of what happened in every previous round. Sure, the enemy is more determined this time, but we don't expect the dynamic to change in quality, only quantity. But if we only use children, we inflict fewer casualties and that would squander the opportunity to hurt Jewish morale."
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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