Anadolu Agency – January 7, 2024
2 more journalists killed in Gaza, pushing up death toll since Oct. 7 to 109
2 Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks, including Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh, son of prominent journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, says government media office
Ikrame Imane Kouachi
Two more Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the death toll since Oct. 7 to 109, the government media office said.
In a statement, the office identified the two victims as Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya, who lost their lives in an Israeli bombing on their car in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The media office denounced “in the strongest terms this heinous crime” committed by the “Israeli occupation army against journalists.”
Israel aims to “intimidate journalists in a failed attempt to obscure the truth and prevent media coverage,” the office added.
The media office called “on all press unions, human rights and legal bodies to condemn this crime and denounce its repeated commission by the occupation.”
It also called for pressuring “the occupation to stop the genocidal war against our defenseless people in the Gaza Strip.”
Since Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Israel has continued relentless attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 22,722 Palestinians and injuring 58,166, according to local health authorities.
Israeli authorities claimed that the Hamas attacks have killed around 1,200 Israelis.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicines.
‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 93: Israel surpasses three months of Gaza bombing campaign, UN warns of starvation
Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians in the West Bank in overnight raids. In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, in Khan Yunis.
By Musata Abu Sneineh
Casualties
22,835+ killed* and at least 58,416 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 380 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
- 510 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.
- *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 3. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
Key Developments
- Israeli bombing kills Hamza Al-Dahdouh, journalist and son of Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, in airstrike on vehicle, as well as colleague journalist Mustafa Thuraya.
- Israeli warplanes bomb UNRWA-affiliated shelter in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing at least four people while targeting ambulances and rescue teams.
- Israel kills Hani Al-Masdar, Palestinian midfielder player and coach of Palestine’s Olympic football team since 2018.
- Palestinian Football Association (PFA) says Israel killed 88 male and female sports players and 24 administrators and technical staff since October 7, including 67 footballers.
- PFA says Israel targets “sports facilities and the headquarters of Palestinian sports federations and clubs” in Gaza Strip.
- Palestinians in Gaza face harsh winter and torrential rains, with risk of infectious diseases spreading fast among thousands sheltering in overcrowded places with poor sanitary conditions and sewage flooding.
- UNICEF says “most young children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are not able to meet their basic nutrition needs.”
- UN officials conclude that one in four Palestinians in Gaza endure famine-like levels of starvation.
- Axios reports Qatari prime minister told Israeli captives’ families that assassination of Saleh Al-Aruri, Hamas deputy political leader in Beirut, hindered efforts to reach release deal.
- Esamil Qaani, Iran’s Quds Force commander, says “the martyr Al-Aruri will turn into a nightmare for this child-killing entity,” referring to Israel.
- Jenin Brigade releases video of detonating explosive device near Israeli jeep, killing one female soldier and injuring four others.
Israel kills son of Al-Jazeera bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh
Israel’s bombardment and aggression in the Gaza Strip has been ongoing for three months and is about to enter its fourth, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, injured, or buried under the rubble.
In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces committed 12 massacres, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, killing 112 Palestinians and injuring 250 others.
Israeli forces bombed the house of the Abu Alba family in northern Gaza’s Al-Falujah area, killing 20 people and wounding dozens while pummelling Jabalia refugee camp.
Al-Jazeera reported that Hamza Al-Dahdouh, a journalist and the son of Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh, was killed on Sunday morning in an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis, south of the Strip.
Hamza was killed along with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces bombed their car.
Wael Al-Dahdouh had lost a number of his family, including his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, when an Israeli air strike hit a house in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, where they were sheltering in October.
Dahdouh went back to report live on Al-Jazeera from north Gaza less than 24 hours after the tragic event. He left to the south of Gaza with thousands of Palestinians in November, walking tens of kilometers in November. Last month, Israeli forces bombed an area where he went to report from in Khan Younis, injuring him and killing his colleague and Al-Jazeera cameraman, Samer Abu Daqa.
Since October 7, Israel killed 109 Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
Israel bombs UNRWA shelter in Al-Maghazi and Palestinian houses
Wafa news agency reported that Israeli warplanes bombed a UNRWA-affiliated shelter in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing at least four people while targeting ambulances and rescue teams and opening fire at them.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that the number of people killed in Israeli bombings was 22,835 till Sunday noon. At the same time, 58,416 have been injured since October 7, and at least 7,000 people remain under the rubble and are believed to be read. Almost 70 percent of casualties and injuries are women and children.
In Khan Yunis, Israeli bombardment killed 17 Palestinians, including 12 children. The displaced Brais family saw the killing of 25 members in the city’s camp while an apartment in the Al-Amal neighborhood in the town was also bombed.
Palestinian medical sources told Wafa that the Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah City, south of the Gaza Strip, treated dozens of injured people, mainly from the Al-Ajez family, after Israeli forces bombed their house.
At least seven people were killed in bombardment on a building housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah Saturday night.
Palestine’s losses coach of Olympic football team Hani Al-Masdar
Hani Al-Masdar, 42, coach of the national Olympic squad, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday evening.
The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said that Masdar played as a midfielder for Al-Maghazi and the Gaza Sports football clubs before carrying the mantel to coach Palestine’s national team in the Olympics in 2018.
The PFA said that 88 male and female sports players and 24 administrators and technical staff were killed since October 7, including 67 footballers.
PFA also added that in total, 1,000 members of the sports community, including youth and scouts, were killed, injured, or went missing. PFA said that Israeli forces are “targeting sports facilities and the headquarters of Palestinian sports federations and clubs” in the Gaza Strip.
It demanded “an investigation into the occupation’s crimes against sports and athletes in Palestine.”
UN says Gaza bombed while ‘the world watches on’
Wafa news also reported that 10 people were killed near Al-Saraya Junction in Gaza City. Other areas Israeli forces bombed in the past 24 hours, include Deir Al-Balah, Al-Zawaida refugee camp, Al-Nuseirat refugee camps, Al-Shujai’ya, Beit Lahia, and Al-Fakhura.
The UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffith described the Gaza Strip as an “uninhabitable” place
“Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair,” he said on Saturday.
“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence while the world watches on,” he added.
Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, has warned against “widespread famine [that] looms” in Gaza in a report sent to members of the UN Security Council on Sunday.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing a harsh winter and torrential rains, with the risk of infectious diseases spreading fast among the thousands who are sheltering in overcrowded places with poor sanitary conditions and sewage flooding.
Palestinians make custard to beat starvation amid food shortage
Some Palestinians resorted to making “custard,” known as the “dessert of the poor,” as a main meal for breakfast, lunch and supper, made up of only water, cornstarch, and sugar. Although it has almost zero nutritional value, it has become become a meal for thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza, and it is sold for half a shekel ($0.15) per plate, Al-Akhbar newspaper’s correspondent in Gaza reported.
Prices of vegetables and fruits in the enclave, such as orange, garlic, and onion, have risen sharply. A kilogram of garlic costs around 40 shekels ($10.5), while the smae weight in onions costs 25 shekels ($6.80).
Al-Akhbar reported that the availability of certain vegetables and fruits depends on where Israeli forces are stationed. In December, the grocery market was suddenly flooded with lemon and orange, when Israeli forces withdrew from areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, north of Gaza Strip, where citrus groves are located.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said in a report that “most young children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are not able to meet their basic nutrition needs.”
UNICEF said that “90% of children under age 2 are eating two or fewer food groups each day, mainly bread or milk. A quarter of pregnant women said they only eat from one food group per day.”
UN officials concluded that one in four Palestinians in Gaza were enduring famine-like levels of starvation.
Despite a UN Security Council resolution in December confirming the allowance of aid into the Gaza Strip, less than 200 aid trucks have been entering Gaza daily, half of the prewar level.
UNICEF added that “cases of diarrhea among children under 5 have risen from 48,000 to 71,000, an indication of poor nutrition. Normally, only 2,000 cases of diarrhea are reported each month in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas releases video of captive soldiers killed by Israeli fire
As fighting continues between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters, the families of six Israeli captives held by Hamas visited Qatar to push for their release.
However, Axios reported that the Qatari prime minister told Israeli captives’ families that the assassination of Saleh Al-Aruri, the Hamas deputy political leader in Beirut, hindered efforts to reach a release deal.
Aruri was killed last week by an Israeli drone strike, along with two Hamas commanders and four cadres. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Hezbollah movement pledged to punish Israel.
Esmail Qaani, the Iranian brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and commander of its Quds Force, said on Saturday that “The martyr Al-Aruri had bid farewell to the nation without fear for the fate and future of the resistance. The world will witness how the brothers of the martyr Al-Aruri will turn into a nightmare for this child-killing entity,” in reference to Israel.
On Saturday, Hamas’s Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades released a video of the three Israeli captive soldiers who were “mistakenly” killed by Israeli forces last month. The video includes a message from a fourth captive, whom Hamas said was killed in Israeli bombardment.
Hamas published a message in the video addressed “to the families of the IDF soldiers. Netanyahu does not care if all the hostages are killed because his own brother Yonatan was killed in a failed operation to release hostages. With his actions now, Netanyahu is sending you all a clear message: It is time for you to go through the same agony and pain that I went through.”
Concluding the message, he says, “Don’t trust him.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his eldest brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, who was a commander in the special force Sayeret Matkal, in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, during a rescue mission of Israeli hostages captured by Palestinians.
Hamas also released several videos over the weekend attacking Israeli forces’ tanks and armed personnel carries in Al-Maghazi and north Gaza’s Al-Tuffah and Al-Daraj neighborhoods as well as shelling forces with mortar shells.
Israeli forces kill eight Palestinians in Jenin and Ramallah
Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians in Jenin and Ramallah, in the northern and central occupied West Bank, respectively, following a night of raids and clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters from Jenin the Brigade.
The Jenin Brigade released a video of the detonation of an explosive device near an Israeli jeep, killing one female soldier and injuring four others. The Brigade said that Israeli forces were driving on a road in the Al-Jabryat neighborhood in Jenin refugee camp.
Israeli forces killed six Palestinians on Sunday morning near the Martyrs’ Roundabout, south of Jenin. They were identified as the brothers Hazza Najeh Hassan Darwish Asous, 27, Rami, 22, Ahmed, 24, Alaa, 29, Rizkallah Nabil Asous, 18, and Muhammad Yasser Musa Asous, 25.
Another Palestinian from the village of Abwein, north of Ramallah, succumbed to his wounds on Sunday afternoon. He was identified as Ahmad Mahmoud Hussien Muhareb, 28. Two people were also injured in Abwein. Ramallah’s Ministry of Health said there was an eighth Palestinian killed since Sunday morning, without releasing the name.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-93-israel-enters-fourth-month-of-gaza-bombing-campaign-un-warns-of-starvation/
Countercurrent – January 7, 2024
A ‘Genocidal Maniac’:
What is Netanyahu’s Ultimate Goal in the Middle East?
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
This article was written shortly before Israel assassinated the Deputy Head of Hamas Political Bureau Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on January 2. The assassination is a further illustration of the Israeli government’s desire to escape the consequences of its disastrous war in Gaza, by igniting a regional conflict.
The clashes between Hezbollah and Israel are the closest to an actual war that the Lebanon-Israel border has seen since the war of 2006, which resulted in a rushed Israeli retreat, if not outright defeat.
We often refer to the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel as ‘controlled’ clashes, simply because both sides are keen not to instigate or engage in an all-out war.
Obviously, Hezbollah wants to preserve Lebanese lives and civilian infrastructure, which would surely be seriously damaged, if not destroyed, should Israel decide to launch a war.
But Israel, too, understands that this is aﾠdifferent Hezbollah than that of the 1980s, 2000 and even 2006.
Compared to Israel’s behavior in the war of 2006, the Israeli response to Hezbollah’s military action – compelled by its solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza – is greatly tamed.
For example, the 2006 war was presumablyﾠprovoked by a Hezbollah attack on Israeli soldiers, which killed three. (Hezbollah says that the soldiers violated Lebanese sovereignty, as the Israeli army has indeed done numerous times before and since then.)
That single event led to a major war that wreaked havoc on Lebanon, but also resulted in the retreat and defeat of the Israeli army.
Imagine what Israel would have done by the standards of the 2006 war if Hezbollah hadﾠkilled and wounded hundreds of Israeli soldiers, bombed scores of military bases, installations and even settlements, as it has done, on a daily basis, since early October.
A Different Hezbollah
Despite numerousﾠthreats, Israel is yet to go to war with the main objective of pushing Hezbollah forces past the Litani River, thus supposedly securing the border Jewish settlements. But why the hesitation?
First, Hezbollah fighters are much stronger than before.
For years, Hezbollah has fought in traditional warfare settings, namely in Syria, thus producing a generation of battle-hardened fighters and commanders, who are no longer bound to the rules of guerilla warfare, as was the case in the past.
Second, Hezbollah’s missile capabilities have exponentially grown since 2006, not only in terms of numbers – up to 150,000ﾠaccording to some estimates – but also in terms of precision, explosive capabilities and range.
Moreover, Hezbollah has excelled in the development of its own rockets and missiles, which include the powerfulﾠBurkan, a short-range rocket, which can carry a heavy warhead, between 100 to 500 kilograms. This makes Hezbollah, in some ways, self-sufficient in terms of weapons, if not munitions.
Third, Hezbollah’s sophisticated Radwan Elite Units and an elaborate tunnel system that goes deep inside northern Israel, would force Israel to contend with a whole different military reality than that of the last war, should a major military conflict break out.
Fourth, the Israeli army itself is in tatters, demoralized, greatly exhausted and weakened by ongoing daily losses on the Gaza front. It is hardly in a state of preparedness to fight a long and more difficult war against a better prepared enemy.
That in mind, one must not take such comments as that of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant too seriously when heﾠsays that his country is fighting a war on seven different fronts. In actuality, the Israeli army is still fighting a single war in Gaza, a difficult war that it is not winning.
Provoking Iran
To distract from its Gaza losses, and its inability to launch a major war against Lebanon, Tel Aviv wants to drag Tehran into the war.
But why would Israel escalate against the strongest of its enemies in the region, if it is not able to beat the smaller ones?
The short answer is that, by engaging Iran directly, Israel would force the US into a major regional war.
We all remember the seemingly oddﾠdecision by the Biden Administration to dispatch an aircraft carrier to the Israeli shores of the Mediterranean, immediately after the start of the Gaza war on October 7. (The Gerald R. Ford was ultimatelyﾠwithdrawn on December 31)
Washington wanted to send a message to Iran that an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on the United States. But when it became clear that Iran hadﾠno interest in an actual war, Washington realized, or must have realized, that the danger of a regional war does not stem from Tehran, but from Tel Aviv itself.
That is when official US intelligence and political estimatesﾠbegan telling us, and repeatedly so, that Iran had nothing to do with the Hamas military operation of October 7, and that Iran was not interested in war.
The target audience for that message was Israel and its US-western allies who have beenﾠangling for a US-Iran war for years. Biden’s lack of interest in war, of course, has little to do with his propensity for peace, and everything to do with the lack of any serious geostrategic objectives in the Middle East now, his administration’s disastrous failure in Ukraine and the rapid depletion of armaments and munitions.
Israel persisted, however. It continued toﾠaccuse Iran of being the orchestrator of the Hamas attack, and the main ‘existential threat’ to the ‘Jewish state’. In Israel’s understanding, the collective action of Hamas and other Palestinian Resistance groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansarallah in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, are all fragments of a larger Iranian scheme to destroy Israel.
To defeat that imaginary threat, Israel carried out numerous acts of provocations against Iran, focused mostly on theﾠbombing of Iran’s military positions in Syria, leading to theﾠassassination of a top Iranian commander, General Sayyed Ravi Mousavi, near Damascus on December 25.
Biden the Enabler
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US-Iran war would constitute a lifeline for a desperate politician who fully, and rightly, understands, that a no-victory in Gaza would equal a defeat for the Israeli army. Such a defeat would not only be a disgraceful end for Netanyahu’s political career, but also an end of a long-sustained myth that Israel, and the US, can impose their political will on the Middle East through military superiority and firepower.
The Biden Administration must be fully aware of Netanyahu’s intentions, that of dragging the region into the abyss of possibly one of the most devastating wars in recent memory.
Reportedﾠdisagreements and, in fact, a rift between Biden and Netanyahu are not related to a US moral objection to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but to a real American fear that another Middle Eastern war could precipitate the breaking down of US power in the energy-rich region – in fact, beyond.
Thus, the current standstill: Washington’s inability to free itself from its blind commitment to Israel and its violent Zionist ideology, and Netanyahu’s inability to distinguish between the goal of sustaining his personal career and that of destroying the whole of the Middle East.
Unable to place US interests above those of Israel, Biden continues toﾠfeed the Israeli military machine, which is mostly used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This is allowing Netanyahu to champion a perpetual war in Gaza, while working to expand the conflict so that it reaches Beirut, Tehran and other regional capitals.
Needless to say, Netanyahu,ﾠdescribed by US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib as a ‘genocidal maniac’, must be restrained. If not, the Israeli genocide in Gaza will multiply into other genocides throughout the Middle East. –
Dr. Ramzy is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website isﾠwww.ramzybaroud.netBaroud
Who benefits from controlled proxy conflict?
Burhanettin Duran
The Middle East rang in the new year with assassinations and terror attacks. Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau, was assassinated in Beirut last Tuesday. The following day, two bombings in Kirman, Iran (for which Daesh has claimed responsibility) killed 103 people. As those attacks shifted everyone’s attention to Israel, Iran and Hezbollah pledged to exact “revenge and a heavy price.”
Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Operation Prosperity Guardian, which the United States launched in retaliation, the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Sayyed Reza Mousavi in Syria and the killing of Abu Taqwa al-Saedi, a leader of the Hashd al-Shaabi-affiliated militia called the Nujaba movement, in Iraq by the U.S. were among the remaining signs of regional escalation.
Let us also recall that Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) recently arrested 34 Israeli spies.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the Middle East for the fourth time in an attempt to de-escalate tensions. Having arrived in Istanbul last Friday, Blinken is scheduled to visit Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and Greece.
Ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration must work hard to try and prevent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from setting ablaze the entire region.
Destabilization not shocking
Sadly enough, all those clashes and tensions are hardly surprising for the Middle East. Everyone expected the unconditional support that the U.S. and other Western nations offered to Israel’s massacres in Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack would destabilize the region. It was no secret that Israel’s pledge to “eliminate Hamas” and “fight on seven fronts” would entail open and covert operations. Indeed, there was talk of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government hoping that the conflict would spill over to Lebanon and the U.S. would have to confront Iran directly.
Will the increasing number of terror attacks and intelligence operations in the region escalate the ongoing proxy conflict to an open confrontation? The U.S. obviously does not want that. Iran, too, would not want the fighting to “spin out of control” and lead to a war with the U.S. and Israel – despite remaining committed to proxy wars in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Despite deterrent blows, the Axis of Resistance that Iran built over 44 years remains powerful enough to keep the indirect proxy conflict going. Assassinations and terror attacks encourage the Iranian militias to keep the “Qassem Soleimani spirit” alive. There is no reason to expect such developments to deter Iran or its proxies.
Hard times
The fighting spinning out of control represents a serious risk. Indeed, Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has been saying that the West condoning Israel’s aggression results in major ruptures in the international system and heightens the risk of a regional conflict: “I believe that the Israelis are having a hard time stopping themselves from waging war with Lebanon. I insist that this is a dead end. This war will not end if such a thing were to occur. Quite the contrary, there is a need to focus on peace and the two-state solution if people want the issue to be resolved.”
This state of “controlled proxy conflict” might play into the hands of Iran and Israel alike. Yet, the current situation would take the global and regional assessments of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other regional powers to a new level. Specifically, the Gaza crisis, on top of the Ukraine war, could encourage countries in the region to revise their security policies – just like Chinese and Russian efforts to get involved in regional affairs or the bilateral and regional security cooperation agreements between Türkiye and the Gulf states.
The United States might be compelled to revise its Middle East policy depending on the outcome of this year’s presidential election.
Burhanettin Duran is General Coordinator of SETA Foundation and a professor at Social Sciences University of Ankara. He is also a member of Turkish Presidency Security and Foreign Policies Council.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/who-benefits-from-controlled-proxy-conflict
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