(October 16, 2024)
Israel’s long-subservient media has spent the past year imbuing the public with a sense of righteousness over the Gaza war. Reversing this indoctrination, says media observer Oren Persico, could take decades.
(October 16, 2024)
Israel’s long-subservient media has spent the past year imbuing the public with a sense of righteousness over the Gaza war. Reversing this indoctrination, says media observer Oren Persico, could take decades.
(September 17, 2024)
Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant remain tight-lipped about the real goals of the operation, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, as well as other ministers on the far right, declare them openly. Here, they cite a program that the “Forum of Reserve Commanders and Fighters,” spearheaded by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, proposed just a few weeks ago: ordering all residents of northern Gaza to leave within a week, before imposing a full siege on the area, including shutting off all supplies of water, food, and fuel, until those who remain surrender or die of starvation.
Other prominent Israelis, in recent months, have also called on the military to carry out mass extermination in northern Gaza. “Remove the entire civilian population from the north, and whoever remains there will be lawfully sentenced as a terrorist and subjected to a process of starvation or extermination,” Prof. Uzi Rabi, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University, elaborated in a radio interview on Sept. 15. And in August, according to a report in Ynet, government ministers had already started pressuring Netanyahu to “cleanse” northern Gaza of its inhabitants.
Now, Palestinians in the area are increasingly fearful about what’s to come. “The settlers have always used the road belonging to the village [to get to their outpost], but now they are being more aggressive, provoking the residents,” Zawahra said. “In a few days when the academic year begins, the children will have to use this road to get to school. How can we make sure they are not attacked?”
Zawahra also explained how the latest attack has forced village residents to reevaluate what they held to be true: that there is safety in numbers. “We thought that the more people there are [when settlers enter a village], the lower the chance that they will attack. But they shot randomly. If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead.”
The catastrophic situation today must be understood within the context of Israel’s pre-October 7 policies, including vis-à-vis Palestinians’ freedom of movement between Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank. Over more than half a century, the violence of Israel’s ongoing occupation, repeated military assaults, and “separation policy” between Gaza and the West Bank have created a broken and bleeding stretch of land. These policies have manufactured and maintained a humanitarian disaster; separated Palestinians in Gaza from those in Israel and the West Bank; and promoted Israel’s illegitimate political and demographic objectives.
(November 30, 2023)
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”
(November 17, 2023)
While an endless military operation allows the prime minister to cling to power, it also fulfills a larger ideological goal: preventing Palestinian statehood.
(November 30, 2023)
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”
(30.11.2023)
Their investigation is „based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions.“