Yeni Safak – April 11, 2024
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's 3 sons killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza refugee camp
Three sons of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, along with several of his grandchildren, were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in western Gaza City.
An Israeli airstrike targeted a car carrying members of the Haniyeh family in the Al-Shati refugee camp as they were giving good wishes to the camp's residents for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
The eyewitnesses said the airstrike effectively destroyed the car, killing or injuring everyone inside.
Medical sources told Anadolu that the airstrike resulted in the deaths of three of Haniyeh's sons – Hazem, Amir, and Mohammed – as well as several of their own children, in addition to injuring others.
The Gaza media office said of the deadly attack: “The Israeli occupation army committed a horrendous massacre today, Eid al-Fitr day, against the Ismail Haniyeh family, the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement-Hamas, when Israeli warplanes targeted a civilian car carrying some of his sons and grandchildren.”
The airstrike killed five people and injured others, the office added in a statement.
The office condemned “in the strongest terms the ongoing Israeli occupation crimes against the Palestinian people, as hospitals received more than 125 martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation army in the past 24 hours, cold-bloodedly and without regard for the feelings of Muslims.”
Haniyeh himself said in a televised statement: “The occupation believes that by targeting the sons of the leaders, they will break the resolve of our people, but this bloodshed will only strengthen our steadfastness in our principles and attachment to our land.”
He added: “My sons remained in Gaza and did not leave the territory; like all the sons of our people, they are paying a heavy price in the blood of their sons, and I am one of them.”
“We say to Israel: What you haven't taken by destruction, massacres, and extermination, you won't take at the negotiating table.”
On the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge, Haniyeh said Israel's “threats to invade the densely populated Rafah, filled with refugees, do not intimidate our people or our resistance.”
Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 33,500 people, since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200. It has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while much of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has urged Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/hamas-leader-ismail-haniyehs-3-sons-killed-in-israeli-airstrike-on-gaza-refugee-camp-3681021
Anadolu Agency – April 11, 2024
President Erdogan extends condolences to Hamas leader over killing of his three sons
Türkiye's president extended his condolences to Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, over the deaths of several of his family members in an Israeli airstrike, the Turkish Communications Directorate said Wednesday.
During the phone call, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Israel will be held accountable before the law for its crimes against humanity.
Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz also condemned the attack and conveyed his condolences to Haniyeh.
”The Israeli administration will eventually be held accountable for these inhumane attacks under international law,” Yilmaz said on X.
He urged the international community to make “sincere efforts” for a cease-fire and establish lasting peace “before more innocent civilians are killed.”
Erdogan's chief advisor Akif Cagatay Kilic also denounced the attack and offered his condolences.
”I condemn Israel, which continues to massacre innocent people, including children and civilians, even on this holy day,” Kilic said on X.
Three sons of Haniyeh along with several of his grandchildren were killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
The airstrike targeted a car in which members of the Haniyeh family were traveling in the Al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City as they were on their way to a celebration to mark the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, killing three of his sons and four of his grandchildren.
Medical sources told Anadolu that Haniyeh's sons Hazem, Amir and Mohammed were killed along with several of their children while a number of people were injured.
Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.
Around 33,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began.
It has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while much of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has urged it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/turkish-president-erdogan-extends-condolences-to-hamas-leader-over-death-of-family-members-in-israeli-strike-3681023
Gaza death toll exceeds 33,500 as Israeli attacks continue
A total of 33,545 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since last October, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave said on Thursday.
The Gaza-based Health Ministry made the statement as the Israeli deadly onslaught on Gaza entered its 188th day.
The ongoing offensive has also injured 76,094 Palestinians, it added.
The ministry's statement said: "63 martyrs and 45 injuries arrived at (Gaza) hospitals in the past 24 hours as a result of the Israeli occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip,”
"Many people are still trapped under rubble and on the roads and rescuers are unable to reach them," it added.
The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/gaza-death-toll-exceeds-33500-as-israeli-attacks-continue-3681066
Countercurrent – April 11, 2024
Hamas Can’t be Defeated – Israeli Officers Admit
by Dr Marwan Asmar
Israeli army officers believe that they can’t defeat Hamas and Israel’s war on HAMAS will have to last till 2026 and possibly 2027.
Despite the massive destruction of Gaza by the Israeli army and the terrible killings of civilians, the Palestinian resistance movement led by Hamas’ Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigades and Saraya Al Quds of Islamic Jihad still remain a formidable force in the Gaza Strip.
The Americans know this and so do the Israelis although the latter don’t want to admit it and insist on continuing to create more havoc and destruction in Gaza, though the strip has been turned into mountains of rubble at 26 million tons at the last UN count.
Al Jazeera presenter Ahmad Mansour says that on this Eid Al Fitr festivities, there are three items of news which are to say the least “joyful” on the Gaza front.
The Jewish daily Yedioth Ahronoth states Israeli army officers no longer believe that Hamas will be defeated any time soon and in the light of the battles they fought around the 364-Kilometer enclave.
They predict, the defeat of HAMAS will not materialize before 2026 and even 2027 which is a great deal of worry for the soldiers, for the politicians and the Israeli economy that has long gone spiraled downwards after 7 October.
Further, many believe it is the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is the one that is really facing defeat and his statements are full of “hot air.”
Senior United States officials according to CNN consider Netanyahu’s statement that no force in the world would prevent Israel from entering #Rafah as merely a bluster.
Although there are ongoing negotiations on Gaza in Cairo and Doha, the Wall Street Journal states the mediators between the protagonists (Hamas and Israel) say HAMAS has largely rejected the American proposal for an immediate ceasefire and is about to put it’s on special proposal on the table.
Dr Asmar is an Amman-based writer covering Middle East affairs
https://countercurrents.org/2024/04/hamas-cant-be-defeated-israeli-officers-admit/
Information Clearing House – April 11, 2024
Hamas makes military history
Despite killing tens of thousands of civilians, Israel has not been able to defeat Hamas or achieve its objectives in Gaza.
By News Desk
After six months of brutal fighting and the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, multiple Israeli and western commentators have argued that Hamas is winning the war and making military history in the process.
Sir Tom Phillips, a former British diplomat who served as Ambassador to Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, wrote on 9 April in Haaretz that Hamas had succeeded in its objective of “obtaining the release of as many Palestinians held in Israeli prisons as possible, and of re-asserting themselves as a force to be reckoned with.”
He added that Hamas had survived “the IDF onslaught for longer than any war Israel has ever fought,” and in “doing so, they have thoroughly dented Israel’s much vaunted deterrent status. In brief, and with daunting potential long-term consequences for Israel, the IDF no longer looks invincible.”
Hamas has blocked a potential normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which looked inevitable before the war began on 7 October, and put the Palestinian issue “back squarely on the international map” after years of the Palestinian Authority (PA) failing to do so.
A final victory for Hamas, Phillip notes, is the “head-spinning speed of Israel’s post-October 7 delegitimization in the eyes of many in the world.”
On 8 April, Israeli journalist Amos Harel similarly wrote in Haaretz that Israel’s primary goals in Khan Yunis “haven’t been achieved.”
Following the withdrawal of the 98th Division from the southern Gaza city, Harel noted that the Israeli army’s “two goals were the capture of top Hamas officials in Gaza and the rescue of the Israeli captives currently held by the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza.”
“The public should be told the truth: The enormous death and destruction the IDF is leaving behind in Gaza, alongside quite a few losses on our side, aren’t currently bringing us any closer to achieving the war’s goals,” he concluded.
In an analysis in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli political analyst Nadav Eyal explained that Israel had wished to restore its power of deterrence, eliminate Hamas, and free the captives held by Hamas in Gaza. But none of these objectives have been achieved.
“Israel’s failure is not based on presenting the goals of the war – which were fully supported by all Western countries. The failure lies entirely in the execution,” Eyal wrote, adding that “war is not won just by killing. A complementary political act is needed.”
The first failure, according to the report, was “the civilian suffering in Gaza.”
“Those who want to overthrow the rule of Hamas in Gaza do not conduct a Roman-style revenge campaign, carry out a protective wall or retaliatory action as if it were the 1950s.”
The Israeli commentator also blamed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for his attitude towards Washington. “Netanyahu’s public and evil confrontation with the Biden administration only emphasized Israel’s weakness,” he said.
Eyal also noted that Israel had become isolated in the international community and that even its allies in Washington and Brussels were beginning to turn against it.
“Not only has [Israel] lost support in most of the West, and is very close to an arms embargo from Europe, even among its great ally, the tectonic plates are in motion.”
On 27 March, Israeli intelligence officials also noted the change in Washington. They told The Telegraph that the Israeli government’s stated goal to “eradicate Hamas” in the Gaza Strip has become unachievable after the US “turned its back” on Tel Aviv by abstaining during a UN Security Council (UNSC) vote earlier in the week.
“If you’d asked me this a month ago, I would definitely say yes [we can eliminate Hamas] because, at that time, the Americans were backing Israel,” an Israeli intelligence official told the British daily, reportedly suggesting this assessment “had now changed.”
“The US doesn’t support going into Rafah, which they did before, so the cards right now are not good, meaning Israel has to do something dramatic and drastic to change the momentum and climate,” the source added, highlighting that “pressure is mounting on Israel to reach some sort of a deal, which means Hamas could survive. Both Hamas and the Iranians are playing on that.”
According to the official, the belief inside the Israeli security apparatus is that Hamas is “focused on surviving until the summer,” when the US election campaign will go into full gear.
Speaking on the Turkish channel Haber Global, military analyst and retired colonel Eray Gucuer also suggested Hamas is winning the war while discussing the Israeli withdrawal from Khan Yunis ahead of a presumed assault on Rafah.
“If the Israeli army really is in a situation where it could not attack Rafah except by withdrawing its brigade from Khan Yunis, this means that it effectively lost the ground war.”
“Israel, in this war, almost completely destroyed Gaza and killed thousands of civilians. However, the Qassam Brigades still exist. Until this moment, it has military superiority on the ground … no one with military experience can hide his admiration for the amazing tactics adopted by Al-Qassam… Indeed, they are writing history.”
“Imagine, since the beginning of the war in Gaza and until today, we still hear about Beit Hanoun and Ben Lahia, Al-Nasr neighborhood, and Al-Zaytoun neighborhood. Why? Because the Qassam operatives invented a tactic for the first time in my life that I have seen in the history of guerrilla wars,” he concluded.
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/04/11/hamas-makes-military-history/12/
Information Clearing House – April 11, 2024
Saying What Can’t Be Said: Israel Has Been Defeated – a Total Defeat
The war’s aims won’t be achieved, the hostages won’t be returned through military pressure, security won’t be restored and Israel’s international ostracism won’t end.
We’ve lost. Truth must be told. The inability to admit it encapsulates everything you need to know about Israel’s individual and mass psychology. There’s a clear, sharp, predictable reality that we should begin to fathom, to process, to understand and to draw conclusions from for the future. It’s no fun to admit that we’ve lost, so we lie to ourselves.
Some of us maliciously lie. Others innocently. It would be better to find solace in some airy carb with a total-victory crust. But it might just be a bagel. When the solace ends, the hole remains. There’s no way around it. The good guys don’t always win.
My favorite book is “Love in the Time of Cholera.” It feels good all over to think that even after 51 years, nine months and four days, Florentino Ariza will consummate his love with Fermina Daza. Gabriel Garc￭a M￡rquez was a fabulous writer, but letters don’t always reach their destination. Sometimes beautiful love is cut short, painful and bleeding until death arrives. That’s life. Sometimes there’s a good ending, but quite often there isn’t. Wars are like that, too.
After half a year, we could have been in a totally different place, but we’re being held hostage by theﾠworst leadership in the country’s history – and a decent contender for the title of worst leadership anywhere, ever. Every military undertaking is supposed to have a diplomatic exit – the military action should lead to a better diplomatic reality. Israel has no diplomatic exit.
It has a scoundrel for a leader, someone with no capacity for leadership or decision-making, a person who loses his sense of good judgment over a free cigar. Yet the electorate put its faith in the current prime minister to the tune of 32 Knesset seats.
Theoretically, we could have been in a better place. The shock of the outbreak of the war could have been a starting point for a swift, powerful, aggressive, eminently justified campaign to quickly root out Hamas wherever that was possible. It could have then been replaced by a coalition of countries with money and good intentions to carry out reconstruction, with global and Arab backing, along with the Palestinian Authority. We could have created a viable alternative to Hamasﾠin Gaza. After six months, there already might have been the first signs of independent government there. Every day and every minute, better decisions could have been made. But that’s whom we elected – a suit with a person attached.
We can’t say it, but we’ve lost. People have an inclination to believe in the best and be optimistic, hoping that tomorrow will be okay, that we are in a process that in the end will be more successful. That’s the most fundamental failure of human thought: the notion that the direction we are taking is a good one, that we just need to get there already – that in just a little more time, with a little more effort, the hostages will be returned, Hamas will surrender and Yahya Sinwar will be killed. After all, we’re the good guys, and good will triumph.
It’s the same mentality that leads to the notion that “the Iranian regime will soon implode” and other notions that have more to do with Hollywood scripts than life itself. They’re not the truth and it relates to something that’s uncomfortable. After all, it’s uncomfortable telling the public the truth.
It’s unpleasant to say, but we may not be able to safety return to Israel’s northern border.
My conclusion from October 7 as a journalist is that what’s “uncomfortable” is the most dangerous thing for our security and our future here, that being addicted to feeling good is itself what’s dangerous. We need to tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it hurts, even if some people deplore it, even if it lowers morale.
We need to stand up to the Bibi-ist propaganda machines even if attack dogs are sniffing at our crotch. If on October 1, someone had said that the chief of military intelligence was incompetent, that military intelligence could plan successful operations but was incapable of providing a warning about a coming war, that the Shin Bet was dozing and that we were about to get the whooping of our lives, such a person would have been perceived as crazy, defeatist and out of touch. Certain politicians would have called for such a person to be charged with spreading false news. There were so many signs that the military was in bad shape, but we wouldn’t see them – because we believe things are all right.
It’s unpleasant to say, but we may not be able to safety return to Israel’s northern border, to what had been before. Hezbollah has changed that equation, to its own benefit. That’s the situation.
We constantly tell ourselves about an imaginary deadline – April, May, September 1 – and if Hezbollah keeps it up until then, we’ll give it a thorough shellacking. The deadline keeps being pushed back. Theﾠborder region remains empty. The deceit continues. There now seems to be a high probability that for years, anyone driving along the border will be a target. Tel Hai will fall again.
And that’s true on every front: Not all hostages will return, either alive or dead. The whereabouts of some are lost, and their fate will remain unknown. They’ll be like the downed airforce navigator Ron Arad. Their relatives will go around sick with worry, fear and apprehension. From time to time, we’ll launch balloons in their memory.
No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing was dealt a beating. Our leadership’s weakness was revealed to the outside. For years we managed to fool them into thinking we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In truth, we’re a shtetl with an air force, and that’s on the condition that its awakened in time.
In part it’s the military’s sacred place in Israel that makes it so hard to admit defeat. You can’t say anything bad about the military. Only when it comes to October 7 are you specifically allowed to talk about a disgrace. Since then, we’ve been lions.
Granted that many combat soldiers are indeed lions. They got up and left home. They fought, demonstrated skill as soldiers and chalked up impressive tactical achievements. Our defeat doesn’t mean they’re not good soldiers, that they didn’t make an effort, that they didn’t deliver or risk their lives, that they weren’t prepared to do whatever was required. It means that the combination of military capabilities and the politicians’ conduct produced an unfavorable outcome. The spin doctors keep jumping up yelling that “you’re hurting soldiers’ morale.” In truth, that’s easy to put across because who wants to come out in opposition to the soldiers?
So we keep fooling ourselves.
Along with natural psychology, there are the machines plying lies and deceit. There’s a political camp the very survival of which pretty much depends on a “victory.” That camp has long since lost all touch with truth and reality. We’ve gotten to know its leader, that human Pinocchio. For months, he’s been talking of “total victory” and of being “a step away from victory.” And for a couple of months, he’s been saying that we’re going to enter Rafah “right away,” tomorrow, tomorrow, here I go. I would believe TV reality figure Ohad Buzaglo telling me I’m his one true love before I would believe one word from Netanyahu.
The system is to procrastinate for as long as possible, and in the meantime – lie. The army of spokespeople is hollering. And in recent months, right-wingﾠChannel 14 has been giving rise to a new mouthpiece, a “shababnik,” as the ultra-Orthodox community calls people on the community’s margins, by the name of Motty Castel. If Yinon Magal and Erel Segal are submissive slaves to the father-king, Castel is a serf to the king’s son Yair Netanyahu. I’ve seen freer people at the Dungeon club.
This week Castel broke through Channel 14 screens to promise the people that victory is at hand: “I’m being contacted by a lot of citizens [who ask]: ‘Have we given up on Rafah?’ I’m saying with all due responsibility that we will enter Rafah. The prime minister has said too many times himself that we will enter Rafah and he can’t forgo entering Rafah. Furthermore, he also said in one interview that we’re going to have to do it on our own, contrary to the position of the United States. We will do it. You can calm down. It will happen.”
Rafah is the newest bluff that the mouthpieces are plying to fool us and make us think that victory is just moments away. By the time they enter Rafah, the actual event will have lost its significance. There may be an incursion, perhaps a tiny one, sometime – say in May. After that, they’ll peddle the next lie, that all we have to do is ________ (fill in the blank), and victory will be on its way. The reality is that the war’s aims will not be achieved. Hamas will not be eradicated. The hostages will not be returned through military pressure. Security will not be reestablished.
The more the mouthpieces shout that “we’re winning,” the clearer it is that we’re losing. Lying is their craft. We need to get used to that. Life is less secure than before October 7. The beating we took will sting for years to come. The international ostracism won’t go away. And, of course, the dead won’t be coming back. Nor will many of the hostages.
For some of us, life will get back on track, with the petrifying fear of an imminent repeat. And for some of us, life won’t get back on track. Those people will walk among us like the living dead. That’s what we voted for. That’s how it is. We need to get used to the sad reality in our homeland.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
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Maryam Turab
