التصنيف: estaql

Central Gaza Strip – As the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas holds for what may be its final day, many of the displaced Palestinians staying in the town of Deir el-Balah have taken advantage of the lull in Israeli bombings and made their way to the Mediterranean Sea.

On the shore, boys heap sand over their bodies, racing to see who finishes first. Some of the children are taking turns on the swings, their first expression of childhood in nearly two months.

As the waves crash to shore and recede, Ahmad al-Toum breathes in the breeze, his shoulders relaxing.

“The sea means a lot to me,” he said. “It’s a great release for everyone who felt pent up and surrounded by the psychological pressures of not being able to provide safety and security for their own family.”

The 28-year-old from the coastal town of al-Sudaniyeh, in northwest Gaza, has been displaced since October 10, staying with his extended family in a United Nations-run school.

“People who live by the sea know it more than their own homes,” he said.

Al-Toum hasn’t showered in 20 days and is grateful to escape the “disease and dirtiness” of the school shelter.

“I wanted to take the kids for a change of scenery, to wash them in the sea, to get out of the psychology of war,” he said.

“Running into the sea, yelling, screaming – letting it all out so that one can have the energy to keep on persevering.

“It’s been such a terrible time, but we are stronger than the Israeli occupation,” he said.

After Hamas’s surprise October 7 attack on Israeli towns and army bases in southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people, Israel launched its most devastating attacks yet on the Gaza Strip.

Over the course of more than 50 days, Israeli forces have killed more than 14,800 people, including 6,150 children. More than 7,000 others – including 4,700 women and children – are missing, presumed dead under the rubble of their own homes.

According to Salama Marouf, the head of the government media office in Gaza, Israel dropped 40,000 tonnes of explosives on the strip.

Abu Anas, who is from the northern town of Beit Hanoon, describes the sea as “our outlet, our only escape”.

“We came here for our children, to change their moods and lift their spirits because they have been living in fear and anxiety with the non-stop sounds of artillery shelling and bombs,” the 35-year-old said.

“We don’t know if the war will resume … we just want to breathe a bit.”

The bitter reality for us, Palestinians in Gaza, is that we are alone, beleaguered, under siege, and are seen as undesirables even by some of those who are supposed to be our brethren. Forty-five days of barbaric massacres have claimed the lives of more than 14,000 people, including more than 6,000 children and 3,500 women.

Among the thousands of men who have been killed are university students, doctors, nurses, shop owners and youth who were sent out by their families to search for food or water.

More than 7,000 are still missing, including 4,000 children – most of them are dead, buried under the rubble of their homes.

More are dying in bombed-out hospitals rendered unoperational and in the few that are still working but cannot cope with the tens of thousands wounded due to the lack of staff and medical supplies. Soon even more will be dying of disease, hunger and the winter cold.

Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilian homes has completely wiped out hundreds of families from the population register. Some 1.7 million people have been displaced.

For 45 days, Palestinians have been left alone to face the onslaught of the world’s fourth strongest army, which possesses 200 nuclear weapons, hundreds of F-16 jets, attack helicopters, gunboats, battle tanks and armoured vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists.

As the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels, some Arab regimes have done nothing more than issue timid statements, denouncing and condemning. Nothing more.

In fact, Arab regimes have let down the Palestinians since 1948, and to this day, official Arab positions are a combination of cowardice and hypocrisy. They have failed to bring an end to the Israeli siege on Gaza for 17 years now and are now failing to stop Israel’s genocide.

We in Gaza are now wondering how the timid expressions of support coming out of the streets and capitals of the Arab nations can be turned into concrete action in the absence of democracy. We wonder whether the Arabs living under the rule of authoritarian, oligarchical regimes can change them in non-violent ways.

We exhaust ourselves trying to figure out the possible means available to achieve democratic political change, because with the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid regime in the rest of Palestine, we have not seen any practical translation for the solidarity shown by some Arab peoples with Palestine.

Desmond Tutu, the late South African anti-apartheid activist and Anglican bishop, once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

As I argued during Israel’s brutal assaults on Gaza in 2009, 2012, and 2014, the United Nations, the European Union, and Arab states have not been neutral; they have remained largely silent about the atrocities the Israeli forces have committed. Since thousands of corpses of women and children have failed to convince them of the need to act, they have taken Israel’s side.

This state of affairs put two choices before the Palestinians in Gaza: dying dishonourably while thanking our killers for a trickle of food and water; or fighting for our dignity, for ourselves and the coming generations. It is now clear that after years of self-deception that portrayed slavery to the occupier as a fait accompli, we have chosen the second option.

But instead of recognising our resistance as such and seeing it in the context of the decades-long Palestinian struggle for freedom from occupation and apartheid, the international community is instead reducing it to a “conflict” between two “equal” sides.

The ongoing truce and the longer-term ceasefire initiative reflect this attitude. They in no way take into account that Israel has two clear objectives in its war on Gaza: the slaughter of the largest possible number of Palestinians by targeting Palestinian civilians; and the elimination of any possibility of resistance in order to maintain stability in this open-air concentration camp.

It appears that what the international community is requiring of Palestinians is to behave as “house slaves” and be grateful for the crumbs their white masters are letting them have. They are to appreciate the trickle of food and water that is allowed to sustain them barely alive and accept their slow death. They are to concede that if they die, it is their own fault.

But Palestinians in Gaza and beyond will not oblige.

Accordingly, any agreement that does not lead to the immediate lifting of the blockade, the reopening of the Rafah crossing and all the other crossings in a manner that allows the introduction of food, fuel, medicine, and all other needs – in conjunction with an agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and apartheid and upholds the Palestinian right of return – will not be acceptable to the people of Gaza.

The biggest source of concern for the Israeli “masters”, their Western allies, and their Arab lackeys, would be for us to raise the ceiling of our demands to that level; to demand that the conflict be put in the context of the multifaceted settler-colonial enterprise, the occupation, the apartheid, and the ethnic cleansing.

October 7 is a pivotal moment in Palestinian history. Gaza and the rest of Palestine yearns for a leadership that rises up to the level of this historic moment, a leadership that would take the following measures without any further delay:

Enacting a full cessation of security coordination with Israel;

Going to the International Criminal Court and suing Israeli political and military leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity;

Reviewing all agreements signed with Israel, particularly the Oslo Accords and related agreements;

Declaring a clear position on any initiative that does not take into account the need for the immediate end of the siege, the reopening of all crossings, and the restoration of the full freedom of movement.

Any talk about improving the conditions of oppression in light of the great sacrifices of Gaza is a betrayal of the Palestinian martyrs. It is time to start discussing radical solutions away from the “interim programme” and the Bantustan-like state, and adopt a clear slogan: end the occupation, end the apartheid, and end settler-colonialism. This is the only way the loss of thousands of lives in Gaza would not have been in vain.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

NewsFeed

A UN official has described seeing thin and thirsty Palestinians “desperate” for aid as his team delivered supplies to Gaza during the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas.

After weeks of discussions on a “humanitarian pause”, there is finally a tenuous truce in place.

This has been a long road, largely because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a never-ending war — in part to defer his ongoing domestic political and legal woes, and in part because he claims to want to pursue the almost impossible task of eliminating Hamas.

Meanwhile, Hamas know their only hope for being perceived as victorious — however pyrrhic any such “win” might be — is to secure an indefinite ceasefire.

With that scenario unlikely, they must also maintain a narrative of escalation, and use rhetoric to ensure that their regional allies remain primed and ready.

Cue the rise of anti-diplomacy, which international security studies scholar James Der Derian characterises as a form of “war by other means”. It encompasses practices that effectively perpetrate a form of violence against the traditional process of diplomatic mediation and reconciliation.

Part of this anti-diplomacy is an increase in attacks on those advocating mediation, reconciliation and peace – often involving disinformation and propaganda. These attacks are multifaceted, occurring domestically, regionally and internationally.

On November 23, the Israel account on X, run by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted an edited video showing an Israeli soldier purportedly navigating a Hamas tunnel near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza — adding to a growing set of such videos. Intriguingly, the video references Qatar three times, specifically pointing out the tunnel’s proximity to the “Qatari compound” and the “Qatari building”.

The phrase “Qatari building” in the context of al-Shifa has only ever been used since November 16, with the earliest mention appearing to emanate from a video posted by the Israeli army. Usually, the Qatari building refers to the “Qatar Reconstruction HQ”, which lies 3km (1.9 miles) away.

The use of such language is no coincidence. With propaganda, nothing happens by accident. Word choices — especially the mention of particular countries or people, are carefully selected to convey certain messages.

In this case, it’s part of a broader attempt to try and link Qatar to Hamas and the Israeli narrative of al-Shifa serving as a command-and-control centre for the armed Palestinian group.

Why?

Qatar has been playing a leading role in mediating for peace amid the current war. Its work has been central to the negotiations that have led to the release of captives by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners by Israel, starting Friday.

By trying to undermine the mediator’s credibility, Israel hopes it can pressure Qatar into securing a better deal for itself — sometimes, even when its efforts are at odds with what the United States, its closest ally, is saying and doing.

In October, for instance, the Israeli army deleted a video critical of Qatar following US President Joe Biden’s commendation of Qatar for its mediation efforts, pointing to a tension between US policy and Israel’s internal politics.

In other words, Israel’s attempts at anti-diplomacy have run afoul of the US, which has emphasised its faith in Qatar’s role as a mediator.

Global anti-diplomacy

There are other examples, too, of anti-diplomacy at work. United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has been the target of a smear campaign accusing her of violating the UN’s Code of Conduct.

Albanese, an international law expert and outspoken advocate of peace, publicly refuted accusations promoted by pro-Israel propagandists surrounding a trip to Australia, clarifying that the journey was officially funded by the UN as part of its mandate.

Albanese has emerged as one of the most eloquent and credible voices in calling for an end to the war through a ceasefire. Her snappy put-downs of ill-informed questions from journalists have frequently gone viral, earning her a growing social media following. In Australia, one pro-peace protester even held up a placard bearing her picture and the slogan “The real Albanese” — in a reference to the country’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

For Israel, the end of conflict may also mean the process of accountability beginning. This is why influential diplomatic voices like Albanese’s, calling for peace, are targets of disinformation.

With more than 100,000 followers on X, her reach and social media savvy make her a threat to Israel’s forces of anti-diplomacy. The war on attempts to bridge differences — diplomacy, in a broader sense — is playing out on college campuses in the US and Europe, which have become battlegrounds of public opinion. There have been allegations of college protests promoting anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinianism.

Yet these are also subject to anti-diplomacy campaigns designed to promote division and conflict. The University of British Columbia’s branch of Hillel, an organisation dedicated to promoting Jewish life on campus, reported that a contractor of theirs, without the organisation’s knowledge, had placed stickers around the campus with the message “I love Hamas”. The aim was clearly to manipulate anxieties and smear pro-Palestinian activists as necessarily pro-Hamas.

What about Hamas?

Hamas will have its own propaganda plans for this period of truce. And in the absence of a full ceasefire — with Israel making it clear that it intends to continue the war after the pause — Hamas might have reasons to worry.

At the moment, the global public mood, including in the West, seems to be in support of a ceasefire – although Western politicians seem less inclined to back that sentiment.

Mainstream media and social media are vital in shaping opinions. Hamas knows this, and that it needs relentless global pressure against the war.

Hamas doesn’t just need Gaza to remain in the news, but needs Palestinians to be humanised. Will the world stop caring as much if the temporary let-up in bombing slows down the tide of horrific social media videos of slaughtered civilians coming out of Gaza?

With Israel gunning for further war, Hamas must prepare both militarily and also rhetorically.

Enter anti-diplomacy, again. On November 23, after the truce had been announced and less than a day before it was to come into force, the military wing of Hamas released a video calling for “all resistance fronts” to escalate confrontation with Israel.

It may seem counterintuitive to call for an escalation right before a pause obtained through tough negotiations. But Hamas will not want the truce to send the signal to its allies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran that they can ease up in their support for the Palestinian group in the war against Israel.

The threat of regional escalation — yes, on “all resistance fronts” — has been one of Hamas’s trump cards in trying to encourage even reluctant US efforts to call for a truce.

So, what do I expect in the next few days?

Israel will seek to keep public opinion mobilised in support of war and undermine mediators or those calling for peace. For their part, Hamas will want to generate maximum sympathy for Palestinian suffering, while also maintaining a level of bellicosity to maintain support from their allies.

On November 25, the deal that has enabled a pause in fighting faced another crisis when Hamas delayed the release of captives, accusing Israel of reneging on aspects of the agreement.

It’s hard to say which side was to blame, or whether both shared responsibility — but the drama underscored the fragility of the truce.

The bombing may have been paused, but war by other means continues.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Polish truckers and farmers are staging an around-the-clock blockade of the southeastern Medyka crossing.

Polish truckers and farmers have started a blockade of one of the busiest border crossings with Ukraine, expanding a protest against what they say is unfair competition from Ukraine and demanding more government support.

The Polish truckers and farmers began an around-the-clock blockade of the southeastern Medyka crossing on Monday.

Medyka is the fourth border point Polish workers have blocked since November 6, stranding thousands of lorries for days in kilometres-long lines.

The Polish truckers said they are losing out to Ukrainian companies, which offer cheaper prices and are transporting goods within the European Union rather than just between the bloc and Ukraine.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU lifted permit requirements for Ukrainian truckers entering the bloc and for EU truckers entering Ukraine.

‘No intention of giving up’

The Polish truckers are demanding the EU reintroduce the old permit system, offering exemptions for the transport only of humanitarian and military supplies.

They also want empty trucks from the EU to be excluded from an electronic queueing system in Ukraine and measures to stop Belarusian and Russian hauliers from setting up companies in Poland to get around sanctions.

Polish farmers joining the blockade are pressuring their government to extend support to help them cope with low grain prices.

Tomasz Borkowski, leader of a Polish transporters union, said the workers are committed to maintaining the blockade until their demands are met.

“I would like to end this protest as soon as possible because it is as burdensome for us as for everyone around us,” Borkowski said.

“We have no intention of giving up, and we will stand until we get our terms.”

Long waits

Protesters said only two trucks were being allowed to pass through the Medyka border crossing per hour with exemptions made for humanitarian aid and war supplies.

This has led to a 127-hour wait for trucks to cross at Medyka, one of just eight road border crossings with Ukraine, according to data from the Polish border guard.

Ukraine said the protest is damaging its fragile wartime economy by hampering exports and stopping supplies of essentials like motor vehicle gas from entering the country.

With Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, a key export route before the war, virtually blocked by Russia, Ukrainian businesses rely on roads and railways to reroute exports and imports.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure estimated that an average of 40,000 to 50,000 trucks had been crossing the border with Poland per month via eight existing crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine’s transport fleet.