Julia Frankel, Najib Jobain and Bassem Mroue – Associated Press Jan 20, 2024
A member of Israel’s War Cabinet cast doubt on the country’s strategy for releasing hostages held by Hamas, saying only a cease-fire can free them, as the prime minister rejected the United States’ calls to scale back its offensive.
The comments by Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief, marked the latest sign of disagreement among top Israeli officials over the direction of the war against Hamas, now in its fourth month.
In his first public statements on the course of the war, Eisenkot said that claims the dozens of hostages could be freed by means other than a cease-fire amounted to spreading “illusions” — an implicit criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads the five-member War Cabinet and who insists that pursuing the war will win their release.
Eisenkot’s statements came as some relatives of hostages have intensified their protests, a sign of mounting frustration over the government’s seeming lack of progress toward a deal to release the remaining captives.
Eli Shtivi, whose 28-year-old son Idan has been held in Gaza since he was kidnapped by Hamas militants from the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival on Oct. 7., began a hunger strike Friday night outside Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal town of Caesarea. Shtivi pledged to eat only a quarter of a pita a day — the reported daily meal of the hostages — until the prime minister agrees to meet with him. Dozens of people joined him for what organizers said was an overnight protest.
The day before, rifle-toting Israeli police scuffled with protesters who blocked a major highway in Tel Aviv to call for an immediate deal to release the hostages. Police detained seven protesters overnight, according to Israeli media.
Meanwhile, communications began to gradually return in Gaza after a nearly eight-day blackout, the longest such cutoff since the war began. The phone and internet blackout made it nearly impossible for people in Gaza to communicate with the outside world or within the territory, hampering deliveries of humanitarian aid and rescue efforts amid continued Israeli bombardment.
For the past week, Gaza residents have struggled to get a signal on their phones. Many head to the beach, where some can pick up a non-Palestinian network. With families scattered across the tiny Mediterranean territory, networks are critical to make sure relatives are still alive as Israeli airstrikes crush homes.
“The people behind me came to check on their friends, family and loved ones,” said Karam Mezre, referring to others sitting with him on a rock at the beach in central Gaza, scanning their phones.
Even when communications return, “it is intermittent and not stable,” said Hamza Al-Barasi, who was displaced from Gaza City.
The blackout has also made it difficult for information to get out of Gaza on the daily death and destruction from Israel’s offensive. The assault has pulverized much of the Gaza Strip, home to some 2.3 million people, as Israel vows to crush Hamas after its unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into Israel. In the attack, about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 others taken hostage. Israel has said more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but not all of them are believed to be alive.
Israel’s offensive, one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, has killed nearly 25,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and uprooted more than 80% of the territory’s population.
Israel has also cut off all but a trickle of supplies into the besieged territory, including food, water and fuel, causing what U.N. officials say is a humanitarian disaster.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has provided strong military and political support for the campaign, but has increasingly called on Israel to scale back its assault and take steps toward establishing a Palestinian state after the war — a suggestion Netanyahu has soundly rejected.
Speaking during a nationally televised news conference Thursday, Netanyahu reiterated his longstanding opposition to a two-state solution, saying Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.”
On Friday, President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone after a glaring, almost four-week gap in direct communication amid fundamental differences over their visions for Gaza once the war ends.
Biden, for his part, in Friday’s call reaffirmed his commitment to work toward helping the Palestinians move toward statehood.
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have also said the fighting will continue until Hamas is crushed and argue that only military action can win the hostages’ release.
But commentators have begun to question whether Netanyahu’s objectives are realistic, given the slow pace of the offensive and growing international criticism, including genocide accusations at the United Nations world court, which Israel vehemently denies. Critics accuse Netanyahu of trying to avoid looming investigations of governmental failures, keep his coalition intact and put off elections. Polls show that the popularity of Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, has plummeted during the war.
Speaking to the investigative program “Uvda” on Israel’s Channel 12 television, Eisenkot said the Israeli hostages “will only return alive if there is a deal, linked to a significant pause in fighting.” He said dramatic rescue operations are unlikely because the hostages are apparently spread out, many of them in underground tunnels.
Claiming hostages can be freed by means other than a deal “is to spread illusions,” said Eisenkot, whose son was killed in December while fighting in Gaza.
Defense Minister Gallant has said troops disabled the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza, from which significant numbers of troops were withdrawn earlier in the week, and that the focus is now on the southern half of the territory.
But Eisenkot also dismissed suggestions that the military has delivered a decisive blow against Hamas.
“We haven’t yet reached a strategic achievement, or rather only partially,” Eisenkot said.
“We did not bring down Hamas.” The militant group has continued to fight back across Gaza, even in the most devastated areas, and launched rockets into Israel.
The militant group has continued to fight back across Gaza, even in the most devastated areas, and launched rockets into Israel.
In his interview, Eisenkot also confirmed that a preemptive strike against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia was called off at the last minute during the early days of the war. He said he was among those arguing against such a strike in an Oct. 11 Cabinet meeting that he said left him hoarse from shouting.
Such an attack would have been a “strategic mistake” and would likely have triggered a regional war, Eisenkot said.
In a thinly veiled criticism of Netanyahu, Eisenkot also said strategic decisions about the war’s direction must be made urgently and that a discussion about an endgame should have started immediately after the war began.
He said he examines every day whether he should remain in the War Cabinet, which also includes Netanyahu, Gallant, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Ron Dermer, strategic affairs minister in the Netanyahu government. Eisenkot is a parliament member from the opposition National Unity alliance headed by Gantz.
“I know what my red line is,” Eisenkot said when asked at what point he would quit. “It’s connected to the hostages, that is one of the objectives, but it’s also connected to the way in which we need to run this war.”
The war has rippled across the Middle East, with Iranian-backed groups attacking U.S. and Israeli targets. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon threatens to erupt into all-out war, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to target international shipping despite U.S.-led airstrikes.
The United States conducted a sixth strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen on Friday, taking out anti-ship missile launchers that were prepared to fire, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing military operations. President Joe Biden has acknowledged that bombing the militants has yet to stop their attacks on shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor.
Israeli Minister Attacked At Slain IDF Soldier’s Funeral | ‘Stop Gaza War Now…’ | Watch
—
It really is utterly pointless reading the fake news media. Associated Press are rank liars.
The IDF is a school boy army with almost no training, and especially no urban warfare training.
Everyone knows Bibi and his wiff are going to prison, unless he flees to Nazi Amerika, the home of International terrorists and war criminals.
There’s only one reason why Israel is still fighting a war that one, is very hard to win militarily, and two, they can win against an idea which is deeply embedded in the Palistinian sheeple, so the US knows that Israel is in a hopeless situation.
No matter what crimes are being committed, they’ve no choice, but to tough it out.
As many pundits are saying, they US could end this war with one phone call, but Biden, a staunch Zionist, won’t do it.
Israel has zero off ramp, because if there was an off ramp, they’d have taken it by now.
If Nazi Amerika had any reputation before October 7th, they have lost it by now.
We have Putin with his finger hovering over the button. Who knows what he’s got in mind, and then you have some very nasty Jews who are also contemplating desperate actions. What does Putin mean when he says ‘I’ve had enough’, in respect of MI6 and the SAS bringing that prisoner plane down.
As for all these fake news stories about bring in conscription, something I’ve been saying for years its coming. These articles are out there to test public reaction. Even though the sheeple are thickos, I don’t think they’re going to accept it. And another point, the UK can’t afford a bigger army. Before Challanger 2 tanks were sent to UKraine, they only had around 28 tanks in battle condition. The new Challanger 3 tank is about to under go trails, but how many can the UK afford? My guess, about 100, and of that, 75 will be mothballed and stripped of parts. You see, the UK is so bust, that the Nazi regime won’t say to x company, we want you to supply parts for our new C3 tanks, because they can’t afford it, just as one aircraft carrier was being gutted for parts for the other carrier. The UK is a dysfunctional bankrupt basket case.
The entire British army couldn’t fright Russia in UKraine over one town, just one town! They have 70,000 men. At best 20,000 would be needed for other commitments. Out of 50k, only 30k would be fighting troops. Ritter has just returned from a 3 week trip to Russia. He was in Russian UKraine, talking away from the front, and he was told the Russians lost 3000 men, so Ritter says, ‘you took a beating’, but the Russian comes back with, ‘we killed 30,000 of them’. Thats a battle for one town. The UK military doesn’t have a fecking clue what they are up against, and just remember, the Russians are conducting their SMO so they kill as fewer civilians as possible. As Putin says: “We haven’t even started, yet”.
Firstly the nut pm does not care about these mostly settlers hostages because they represent the poor at the Nova rave, mostly settlers such as Arab Jews. The real criminals militants is the designated War cabinet, the IDF and the rest of the populace backing the genocide against the indigenous Palestinians, The open claim is that the murders are against Hamas. Hamas, really is the saviour of the Palestinians. Please Hamas and backers give it to these warmongers, with the exception of the peaceful so called Jews. However, as the nutpm claims that all Palestinians are terrorists, one can make the same assumption that all occupiers are terrorists.
Its all an act. There are no ‘hostages’. Hamas is a Mossad created/directed pysop group, similar to Isis or Alqaeda. Another agitprop skit at a fake funeral this time I see the Jews have staged. Yid ‘crisis actors’ pretending their ‘relatives’ were ‘kidnapped’ to prove the conflict is real or justified.
Las Vegas masskiller has shown that americans
have masses of arms . why is there not ONE
lone wolf killing this corrupt, traitor, pedofil,
senile, usurpator Biden ? must
jewCIA/FBI help like in WACO/Oklahoma + 9.11. ?
Both are on the same side. IDF carried out Oct 7 as an animal could not go without detection and was first stated by Jewish reporters which are all now being silenced.
Tunnels created by Israel per Ehud Barak, Hamas owned by Israel for illusion. There is no live that is valuable to these things and it has spread throughout the world regardless of faith and now with so many nuclear reactors and the ionizing the sky for us by EM stations (most in the latest weather radars as I can see the smear from one location on a sunny day span 200 miles around) but most importantly the Ionospheric Alfven Resonators are world wide goal to wipe out most species if not all with the toxic brew of Geoengineering (go smoke a few packs of cigarettes and you will be safer) and can create plasma clouds blowing out massive holes in the Ozone layer (Movie Holes In the Sky or Angles don’t play this HAARP) with a temperature 10000C and higher and through the Statrosphere into the Troposphere, the latter where all living things exist and the Stratosphere has no Oxygen but now the temperatures increase at the top of the Troposphere and lower Stratosphere.
We now have disease by US DARPA and UK Purbirght Institute that have no way of elimination except when going to war we just irradiate the entire planet but there is worse as in the American Football Game of KC Vs Buffalo they showed the fire falls which is methane that is exponentially increasing with the UV-C levels climbing higher because the Ozone layer is disappearing at a logarithmic rate and there is vastly more methane possibly available than the .42% of CO2 which it should be raining most everywhere but the forever plastics and (by the way 56% of plastic in the waters is created by cutting trawler lines that are wiping out the fish population around the earth (Netflix – Seaspiracy), and the next level is that of forever plastics that are starving water from oxygen that sit on top of the water and are in everything that lives and around the entire earth.
Have fun with the X, as it has been made a while back in the UK, just as the US and UK fabricated SARS-Corona -1 and -2 and these are nothing but a rebranding of the standard Flu and why flu disappeared and rebranded. Now they want us to believe that COVID (Certification of Vaccination ID) still exists but X will be 22x more powerful. The Book that started this all is “Eyes of Darkness” by Koontz in 1981 in Wuhan when it was the U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Purbright Institute (2004)
Read the book Learning from SARS/ Preparing for the Next Disease Outbreak/ Workshop Summary | The National Academies. It’s a PDF from
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10915/learning-from-sars-preparing-for-the-next-disease-outbreak-workshop/
1992 Barcelona Intro has the “spike protein” or is it the “original protein”? Nope, it is a picture of a pollen grain. I have the pictures of the “Virus” which is an Enzyme and created to fight disease by the body especially in the GIS (Gut which has it’s own brain as it is event driven and not autonomic and the shots will give complications especially stacking them when the Pneumonia, Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis shot is given all at once with the TD being force multipliers.
Netanyahu must be removed, top former Israeli national security officials say
Alex Marquardt
By Alex Marquardt, CNN
Published 5:00 AM EST, Fri January 26, 2024
CNN —
“More than 40 senior former Israeli national security officials, celebrated scientists and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel’s president and speaker of parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for posing what they say is an “existential” threat to the country.
The signatories on the letter include four former directors of Israel’s foreign and domestic security services, two former heads of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and three Nobel Prize winners. ”
—————–
Good luck with that.
Leftists (or others) say the West parked Israel next to the cheap oil for our access, but the Arabs got together and raised the price, then Russia steps in with its own oil and Israel is less relevant, so zog USA blows up the pipe-line, and now none of the oil is cheap. Who tries to move us away from oil-dependency? No scenario says there is just one Power. We move away from nuclear even though Rothschild supposedly owned all the uranium. China carries on burning coal–the only common factor is “Kill Whitey”, with even Russia gov. being multi-racial