Operation Iron Swords - Day 27 - 02 November 2023

President Joe Biden said the evening of 01 November 2023 he thought there should be a humanitarian “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war, after his campaign speech in the evening was interrupted by a protester calling for a ceasefire. “I think we need a pause,” Biden said. The call was a subtle departure for Biden and top White House aides, who throughout the crisis have been steadfast in stating they will not dictate how the Israelis carry out their military operations in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says US President Biden is “covering up for Israel as it is finishing its genocide” in the Gaza Strip. “Biden and Blinken are still giving cover to Israel, diplomatic and otherwise – and the promises of peace – in order for Israel to continue with this genocide,” Bishara said.

Palestinian armed group Hamas launched thousands of missiles at Israel and deployed its militants to infiltrate Jewish settlements near the country’s border with Gaza on 07 October 2023. The 1,200 Israelis killed on the first day would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans killed in an attack, as a proportion to Israel’s population of 9.3 million people (compared to 332 million in the USA). Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated: “Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day". PM Netanyahu stated "On October 7th, Hamas murdered 1,400 Israelis. Maybe more. This is in a country of fewer than 10 million people. This would be equivalent to over 50,000 Americans murdered in a single day. That’s twenty 9/11s. That is why October 7th is another day that will live in infamy."

Butcher's Bill / Oasis of Martyrs

Palestinian health authorities say that at least 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, more than four times the number killed in the six-week-long war in 2014. The death toll included 3,760 children and 2,326 women [these subtotals fluctuate inexplicably]. In addition, over 32,000 Paletinians had been injured since October 7th, including at least 6,360 children and 4,891 women. More than 2,060 were missing and presumed buried under rubble, a substantial increase from earlier reports. On the West bank, at least 129 Palestinians had been killed, and more than 1,980 injured. IDF said it was holding 1,500 bodies of terrorists.

More than 1,405 Israelis were killed as a result of HAMAS attacks, including 331 soldiers and officers, according to what was announced by the Israeli army. At least 5,431 were injured.

Some 242 hostages are being held by HAMAS in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said 02 November 2023. Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said “almost 50” hostages had been killed in Israeli bombing raids in the three weeks since the war began. About 40 Israelis remained missing. More than 50 people were killed in an Israeli air raid on the densely packed Jabalia refugee camp, Palestinian authorities said. Hamas said seven Israeli hostages, three of whom held foreign passports, were killed in this attack.

By one estimate, over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. More Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank led to the arrests of dozens of Palestinians, and the number held in Israeli jails has more than doubled to about 10,000 since the Hamas attack on October 7. Israeis jails initially held about 4,000 prisoners from Gaza, and more than 1,550 from the West Bank.

Thousands of Palestinians whose permits to work in Israel were revoked are believed to be held in detention camps, but Israel has so far refused to release information about them, human rights groups said. About 18,500 residents of Gaza held permits to work outside the besieged strip. The Minister of Labour for the Palestinian Authority estimated that about 4,500 workers are unaccounted for and are believed to have been detained by Israeli forces.

Israel asked foreign countries to send hospital ships for the proposed treatment of wounded Palestinians allowed to leave the war-torn Gaza Strip to neighbouring Egypt, the Israeli ambassador to Germany said on 02 November 2023. Interviewed on Israel's Kan radio, Ron Prosor said such a request had been made of Germany and other countries. He described a scenario outlined by Kan, whereby wounded Gazans would board such ships in Egypt's Al Arish port, as accurate.

Operational Update

Blood alone remains the most eloquent and decisive opinion regarding the duration of the frenzied war. The blood flowing in Gaza is searching for an end, and the voices of living consciences across the world have become hoarse as they demand an end to the waterfall of blood shed in Gaza. Israel is not engaged in the "deliberate mass killing of civilians". There is no evidence Israel's war is aimed at murdering civilians.

Details on the Israeli ground operation in Gaza remain scarce. One of the invading groups is moving along the coast of the enclave, while the other is cutting off the northern part of Gaza from the south. Another one has gained a foothold in the north, near the border. The Israeli military says it has completed the “encirclement” of Gaza City, with spokesman Daniel Hagari adding that the prospect of a ceasefire “is not on the table at all”. From the southern part of Gaza City, the Israeli tanks were already stationed at Salah Eldeen main road, and they completed their advance towards the coastal road known as Rashid Street. The UN says about 300,000 internally displaced Palestinians are still in the north of Gaza.

Israel encircled Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip from northwest Gaza, where the al-Shati refugee camp is, and the southwest, where the Al-Quds Hospital is. Israeli tanks and troops pressed towards Gaza City but met fierce resistance from Hamas militants using mortars and hit-and-run attacks from tunnels as the Palestinian death toll from nearly four weeks of bombardment mounted. The war was closing in on the Gaza Strip's main population centre in the north, where the Islamist group is based.

Although it began a few days ago, ground incursions into the Gaza Strip through more than one axis; Israel had so far refused to describe this as the broad ground operation that it has repeatedly threatened, and this may be due to its fear that this will put pressure on regional parties such as Hezbollah that are still reluctant to engage extensively in the war, or because it is afraid of bearing responsibility for failure when it does not. It can achieve the declared objectives of the ground war.

The paths of the incursion had not yet reached the level that is frightening for the resistance, as the locations into which the attacking forces have penetrated are Originally, they served as soft fences for the sector, as they were - in their entirety - open agricultural areas, or areas that were razed and buildings were razed to the ground, which means - according to them - that reaching them does not represent a major military achievement.

However, the ground operation and the extensive air and naval bombardment that accompanies it represent great pressure on both parties. The Al-Qassam Brigades and the resistance factions find themselves facing the strongest and most dangerous Israeli military operations against the residents of Gaza, and they feel - without a doubt - the burden of the harsh humanitarian conditions in the Strip, especially with the number of martyrs rising to nearly 9 thousand, while the Israeli forces are clashing with the most powerful forms of resistance in Palestine. Resilient, most powerful, and every day faced with an unpleasant or promising surprise regarding his incursion.

The analysis indicators and forecast paths confirm the existence of 4 basic factors that will play - albeit differently - a major role in determining the course and fate of the war on Gaza, which are:

1. The resistance’s steadfastness represents the most important factor, as the Al-Qassam Brigades and the resistance factions in general bet on their defensive capabilities, but they do not exaggerate in this despite the “balance of terror” they achieved during the past weeks, stressing that they cannot prevent the incursion, but they will make Its price is very high, which opens the door to questioning the ceiling of the price that Tel Aviv can pay in order to “achieve the minimum level of victory.”
2. Another very important factor is the prisoners or detainees, which represents a new and effective element of power that the Al-Qassam Brigades and the resistance factions in general add to their capabilities and cards in both war and negotiation. If the prisoners are a card in the hands of the Gazans, then their families are a strong pressure card against Government of Netanyahu. The families of the prisoners hold Netanyahu responsible for the lives of their children, and they are also pressing to respond to Hamas’s request to release all prisoners in exchange for the release of all Palestinian and Arab prisoners held by Israel.
3. Washington's remarkable support for Israel militarily, security and politically exceeded all expectations, and expected negative impact on Biden's electoral chances next year. The first national poll of Arab Americans since the war in Gaza began showed only 17% of Arab American voters saying they will vote for Biden in 2024—a staggering drop from 59% in 2020. Muslims in the United States represent an increasingly important component of the social and political fabric in the country, and some have threatened that they will mobilize their political positions against Biden in the 2024 elections, Jilani Hussein, executive director of the CAIR Council in Minnesota, said that American Muslim leaders in states considered crucial for Biden in the 2024 elections will make demands to stop the war on Gaza. Yasmeen Serhan wrote in Time that this was an issue "particularly in Michigan, where roughly 277,000 Arab Americans call home, and Biden won in 2020 by 155,000 votes. But the smaller Arab American populations in Pennsylvania and Georgia were also larger than Biden’s margins of victory there. All three states are ones Biden flipped after Trump won them in 2016."
4. Hezbollah has been partially involved in the confrontation with Israel since the first days of the outbreak of the war, and although the missiles that the party fires towards Israeli sites and towns contribute - even if only partially - as observers say, to dispersing the Israeli war efforts; The party that carries the slogan of resistance against Israel has not yet penetrated deeply, nor has it fully and strongly engaged in the current war between Israel and the resistance factions in Gaza.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said it attacked 19 Israeli positions along the border simultaneously Thursday, on the eve of a speech by the Iran-backed group's leader on the Israel-Hamas war. At 3:30 pm (1330 GMT), Hezbollah fighters "simultaneously attacked 19 Zionist military positions and points with guided missiles, artillery shelling" and other weapons, the group said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it targeted Lebanon's Hezbollah with a "broad assault" on Thursday, as the Iran-backed militant group said it had attacked 19 Israeli positions simultaneously. Israeli "warplanes and helicopters attacked in recent hours targets of the Hezbollah terror organisation in response to fire from Lebanese territory earlier today, together with attacks with artillery and tank fire", an Israeli military statement said.

Israeli raids targeted a residential square containing a number of homes in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing 15 Palestinians, and dozens are still missing under the rubble. Al Jazeera's correspondent said that shrapnel from the bombing and house debris fell on schools housing displaced people in the Bureij camp. The reporter added that a bombing targeted the towers surrounding the Jerusalem Hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent, amid citizens’ assertions that white phosphorus bombs were used in the bombing of the vicinity of a UNRWA school in the Beach Camp, west of Gaza, during which dozens of martyrs and wounded fell.

In the northern Gaza axis, Israeli forces deepened their incursion south in a limited manner, reaching the area of Al-Khalidi Mosque on Al-Rashid Street adjacent to the seashore, and to the north of the Al-Maqousi Towers area along Al-Nasr Street, meaning that they entered the borders of Gaza City from the north.

In the southern axis, Israeli forces have continued to intensively bombard the areas of the Al-Zaytoun and Tal Al-Hawa neighborhoods with fire belts from aircraft and artillery shells for two days, coinciding with the expansion of their incursion there in a limited manner, reaching the area adjacent to the south to the Quraish military site of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas ) .

The government media office in Gaza denied the Israeli army’s announcement that it had struck thousands of military targets in the Strip. The office said that the occupation claims to bomb 12,000 military targets inside Gaza, but in reality its targets are residential neighborhoods and citizens’ homes, in addition to women, children, and gatherings of citizens in front of bakeries, hospitals, and churches. He continued, "We challenge the occupation to disclose to the world the nature of these military targets that it claims, because they will be evidence of its lies and falsity."

In what appears to be a plan to expand incursions from the northwest towards the south, the Israeli army called on the residents of the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City, to evacuate immediately to the south of the Strip. This was stated in paper leaflets dropped by Israeli aircraft on the camp. The Israeli army previously asked residents of the northern Gaza Strip to head to the south of the Gaza Valley and leave the areas north of it, which also include Gaza Cit.

The Israeli army announced the death in combat of an officer, which it described as senior, in the ongoing battles in the northern Gaza Strip, in addition to the serious wounding of 4 soldiers. The Israeli army reported that another soldier had been killed during the ongoing battles in the northern Gaza Strip, announcing that the number of soldiers and officers killed since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 had risen to 334 dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli army is approaching the outskirts of Gaza City, and that it has suffered painful losses in its war with the Palestinian factions. He continued, "We have achieved very impressive successes and are making progress and nothing will stop us. We will continue this war until victory is achieved. We will defeat the enemy in the field and we will win the economic war."

Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy said that the IDF is waging a war in Gaza with a cruel enemy that carries a painful and heavy price.

Israeli military vehicles deepened their incursion into the Gaza Strip, amid violent clashes with Palestinian faction fighters, resulting in 20 deaths among the Israeli army and the injury of others since last October 7.

Abu Ubaida, the official spokesman for the " Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades " the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ), presented a new account of the clashes and battles. He added, "Our mujahideen were able to engage the enemy forces at all points of advance and destroy 22 military vehicles so far with Al-Yassin anti-tank missiles. They were also able to kill and injure a large number of enemy soldiers during the clashes."

He also revealed that the resistance used the “storm torpedo” directed against naval targets for the first time in this battle, noting that the Al-Qassam Navy was able to direct attacks against naval targets off the coast of Gaza using the remotely directed storm torpedo. He stressed that the resistance also introduced "in this battle for the first time explosive devices used from zero distance against tanks." He added that the resistance's defensive operations are in their beginnings with the start of the Israeli ground operation.

He sent another message to Israel's leaders, saying that he "gives good news to (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his military staff that they will kneel at the end of the battle, and the war in Gaza will be his political end." He called on "every honorable soldier and fighter in this nation to seize the opportunity and participate in this battle," stressing that the resistance "still has a lot up its sleeve, and Gaza will be a graveyard for the enemy and a mudhole for its soldiers and political and military leadership."

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, said that it targeted an Israeli foot force that was holed up inside a building north of Beit Hanoun, and other vehicles penetrating northwest Gaza. It also announced that it had targeted an Israeli vehicle and a bulldozer in the southern Gaza axis with two Al-Yassin 105 shells. It also confirmed that it bombed a gathering of Israeli soldiers east of Gaza. Al-Zaytoun neighborhood with mortar shells.

It added that it destroyed an Israeli tank in the northwest Gaza axis and killed 3 soldiers near it, and confirmed that its members were engaged in violent clashes with various weapons with the occupation forces penetrating northwest Gaza. It also bombed Beersheba with a missile barrage in response to the massacres against civilians.

For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, said that its members are currently engaged in fierce clashes with the occupation forces penetrating the Abu Absal area, east of Al-Fukhari, in Khan Yunis.

Human rights documentation said that the per capita share of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7 exceeds 10 kilograms of explosives. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, Israel dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, equivalent to two nuclear bombs. In a statement, Euro-Med highlighted the Israeli occupation army’s admission that its aircraft targeted more than 12,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, with a record number of bombs, with each individual’s share exceeding 10 kilograms of explosives. The Observatory noted that the yield of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II in August 1945 was estimated at about 15,000 tons of explosives.

With the development that has occurred in the increase and effectiveness of bombs, along with the stability of the amount of explosives, it may make the amount that was dropped on Gaza twice that of a nuclear bomb, in addition to Israel’s use of a mixture known as “RDX,” which is equivalent to 1.34 strength of TNT. This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds what was dropped on Hiroshima, noting that the area of the Japanese city is 900 square kilometers, while the area of Gaza does not exceed 360 square kilometers.

Bystanders

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says 102 trucks with humanitarian aid have entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but fuel is still not being allowed in. The Israelis were concerned that Hamas would use fuel for their own operations, including firing rockets towards Israel. The Israeli army’s chief of staff said that they were monitoring the situation and the hospitals in Gaza. He said they were looking at getting fuel into Gaza, and it would be monitored so that there would be no way that Hamas would be able to access the fuel. Within less than an hour, the prime minister’s office said no such plan had been agreed.

A group of UN human rights experts, including the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said that "time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza". "We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide," the experts said in a joint statement. "The time for action is now. Israel's allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action."

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will tell US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman that Israel must end its war on Gaza where he said it was committing war crimes by bombing civilians and imposing a siege. In a foreign ministry statement, Safadi warned that Israel's unreadiness to end the war was pushing the region rapidly towards a regional war that threatened world peace.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the current fuel shortage in Gaza has put 14 out of 36 hospitals and 2 specialty centres in Gaza out of operation. Underlining the severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave, Ghebreyesus said that "the hospitals that remain open are overloaded with 40% more patients than they are designed to manage", as he called for urgent access to humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Egypt will help evacuate "about 7,000" foreigners and dual nationals from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, the foreign ministry said in a statement. In a meeting with foreign diplomats, assistant foreign minister Ismail Khairat said Egypt was preparing "to facilitate the reception and evacuation of foreign citizens from Gaza through the Rafah crossing", adding they "number at about 7,000" representing "more than 60" nationalities.

Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Israel and suspended economic ties with Tel Aviv, the Gulf country’s parliament announced. Israel’s envoy has also departed Bahrain, the parliament said in a statement. It added that its decision to recall its envoy and suspend economic relations is based on the kingdom’s “solid and historical stance that supports the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” The parliament also slammed “Israel’s continuous military operations and escalation amid lack of respect to international humanitarian law,” and called for more decisions and measures to safeguard the lives of civilians in Gaza and across all Palestinian territories.

Axis of Resistance

Lebanon is on edge in advance of Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah’s anticipated speech on Friday about Israel’s war on Gaza, which residents and experts fear could inflame regional tensions if he pledges to escalate attacks against Israel. Nasrallah was set to give his first speech tomorrow since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. With cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel intensifying and the death toll rising, there is a chance that Nasrallah may announce a new phase in the conflict with Israel.

Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has escalated along their fraught border in recent weeks. The Lebanese armed group said it has lost 47 fighters while Israel said six of its soldiers have been killed. At least six civilians have also died. Some believe that Nasrallah could be preparing his constituents in southern Lebanon for an intensified conflict even though many worry that a war could upend their lives as it did in the past.

“I believe Hezbollah … views this conflict as an existential one,” said Mohannad Hage Ali, an expert on Lebanon with the Carnegie Middle East Center. “They think that if Israel manages to meet its objectives in eradicating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, then they will turn around and deal with what they see as the Hezbollah threat.”

“This is Nasrallah’s moment,” Hage Ali told Al Jazeera. “Millions of Arabs will be watching his speech across the world. They will listen to the only leader in the region that is capable of speaking to their anger and despair by telling them that he will act and support Palestinians in Gaza, who face an existential threat of expulsion.”

Samir Geagea, the head of the Lebanese Forces party, has said that the country’s Shia militia Hezbollah should withdraw from the country’s south, as the threat of all-out war with Israel rises. “It would be better if Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah withdrew from the south and handed it over to the army, instead of giving his speech tomorrow, and his promotional films – ‘it’s not time for them’,” Geagea said in a post on social media. Geagea, a Christian, is a former militia commander who fought in the Lebanese Civil War against Hezbollah and Palestinian groups.

Wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh and interacting with every word he said and placing behind him an image of the Dome of the Rock surrounded by crowds carrying Turkish flags, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted his speech to be loud against Israel and include messages in more than one direction, the most important of which is his declaration that “Israel is a war criminal before the world.” In his speech before a million-man demonstration in support of Gaza in Istanbul, Erdogan not only reiterated what he said in 2018 that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but rather a legitimate resistance movement.

It is clear that the restoration of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey at the ambassadorial level, and Erdogan’s reception of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in 2022, has been fatally affected, which Erdogan expressed personally when he confirmed the cancellation of all his plans to visit Israel due to its brutal attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Yemen’s Houthis launched a large batch of drones at several targets in Israel, the group’s military spokesperson said. The group will “continue carrying out military operations in support of Palestinians, until the Israeli aggression in Gaza stops,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sareahe said. The latest attack came a day after the Houthis pledged more attacks against Israel if its war on Hamas in Gaza continues, saying it had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said the US and other countries are looking at “a variety of possible permutations” for the future of the Gaza Strip if Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, was removed.

US’s comment on talks surrounding who would rule Gaza after the war are “rude and unacceptable as the free Palestinian people cannot accept any form of trusteeship”, Hamas said in a statement. “We clearly announce that any blatant attempt by the US to intervene and impose a new reality in the Gaza Strip will be completely rejected, and Palestinian people will confront and repulse it by all possible means, including the use of force,” the statement added. “Only the Palestinians have the right to arrange their home and no one has the right to determine their fate, future and interests. Our people will continue their struggle until they restore their inalienable rights and establish their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Allied for Democracy

The Israeli prime minister, speaking to soldiers, again called on Palestinian civilians to leave the north of Gaza – an appeal humanitarian groups have repeatedly said is not realistic. “Nothing will stop us,” Netanyahu said. “I call to the uninvolved: Get out. Get out, move south,” he said. “Because we will not stop in our activity to eliminate the Hamas terrorists. “We will move forward. We will advance and win, and we will do it with God’s help and with the help of our heroic warriors.”

France will send a second French helicopter carrier off the coast of Gaza as it works with Israeli and Egyptian authorities to find a way to provide medical assistance to people affected by the bombings in the besieged area. Paris had already sent the Tonnerre carrier to the eastern Mediterranean on what President Emmanuel Macron described as a mission to support Gaza hospitals. Egypt this week began admitting limited numbers of wounded across its Gaza border. However, it is unclear what exactly the ships will do in the region as they are too small to work as field hospitals for the number of wounded coming from Gaza. Speaking to France Info radio, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the helicopter carrier Dixmude would also now be heading to the region. "It is being equipped to be transformed into a hospital vessel," Lecornu said.

President Biden threatened to veto a House bill, accusing Republicans of staging a political stunt. Biden wants the US Congress to pass legislation that would both provide additional funding to Israel and Ukraine, but several GOP lawmakers want to separate the two issues. The bill that just passed in the House would provide Israel with 14.3bn, but take the funding from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some top members of the US Senate, controlled by Democrats, also have raised objections to the House proposal.

Departing for Israel, the top US diplomat did not confirm reports that he would push for humanitarian pauses in the fighting while meeting with Israeli leadersy. “We will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimise harm to men, women children in Gaza,” he said. “This is something the United States is committed to. I’m gonna get to the details here, but it’s pretty much on the agenda.” He added that the trip would also seek to deter a wider escalation of the fighting, while focusing on freeing captives held in Gaza and helping more US citizens leave the territory. President Biden said earlier that 74 dual citizens have so far been able to leave Gaza. Finally, Blinken said, “We will be talking about how we can set conditions for a durable sustainable peace, durable sustainable security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

The New York Times, citing White House officials, reported that Blinken will push for a “series of brief cessations of military operations” to allow for more captive negotiations and aid entry. The officials stressed that the pauses would not constitute an overall ceasefire. But reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said that while Blinken will likely receive a warm reception from the close US ally, “as far as getting Israel to perhaps ease up on the fighting, that seems highly unlikely by the comments that we’re getting [from Israeli officials]”. Member of the war cabinet Benny Gantz, said Israel “will fight the war acting in accordance with what is right for Israel”, Fisher pointed out. Prior to that, Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated a call on Palestinians to leave northern Gaza “because we will not stop in our activity to eliminate the Hamas terrorists”.

John Kirby, a White House spokesman, was just asked during a news briefing to explain what “humanitarian pauses” would look like in the Gaza Strip. “We’re really not just talking about one pause; what we’re trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses that might be necessary to continue to get aid [in] and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages. “The president already worked on one such pause, when we were able to get those two Americans out and that’s what we’re kind of looking at. “And just to remind, when we’re talking about humanitarian pause[s], what we’re talking about are temporary, localised pauses in the fighting to meet a certain goal or goals. As I said, get aid in, get people out.”

“You have heard the president say that the US government does support humanitarian pauses to enable humanitarian aid to get in for hostages to get out,” Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder has told a briefing in Washington. However, Ryder reiterated the US stance against a ceasefire, despite an international push for an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. “We do not support a ceasefire, and that gives time for Hamas to regroup, which is something that … would put Israeli citizens and others in danger,” Ryder said.

New House Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans have been “leading the charge to support our cherished friend”, referring to Israel. “I’ve heard Democrats suggest there needs to be a ceasefire. Let us be clear,” he added. “There was a ceasefire, it was before October 7, and Hamas broke it and Israeli suffered unspeakable acts of evil,” added Johnson. “Israel doesn’t need a ceasefire, needs its allies to cease with the politics and deliver support now, And that’s what we’re doing.”

US Senator Bernie Sanders said ‘disaster in Gaza cannot continue’. The progressive politician has faced criticism for not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Sanders called for humanitarian pauses, which are currently being supported by the Biden administration. In his most recent statement, he said: “The disaster in Gaza cannot continue.” “The world must act to save innocent lives. But just as a humanitarian response is critical, it is equally important to lay out a path to a two-state solution and a democratic Palestine,” he said. “Israel cannot bomb its way to a long-term solution.”

CNN asked Dick Durbin, a top Democrat in the US Senate, whether a ceasefire “is needed now” in the Gaza Strip. He replied, “I think it is.” Durbin added that releasing the captives held in Gaza would have to be part of any potential ceasefire agreement. “Let’s face it, this has gone on for decades. Whatever the rationale from the beginning, it has now reached an intolerable level,” the US politician said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We need to have a resolution in the Middle East that gives some promise for the future.”

Senator Chris Murphy was the latest sign of slowly shifting attitudes within the chamber – but an overwhelming majority support for Israel wains. Murphy said, “It’s time for Israel’s friends to recognise that the current operational approach is causing an unacceptable level of civilian harm and does not appear likely to achieve the goal of permanently ending the threat from Hamas.” While he reiterated what US officials have repeatedly called Israel’s “right and obligation to defend itself”, Murphy cited the deadly Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza, which he said “suggests that [Israeli forces] have not struck the right balance between military necessity and proportionality”.

“The current rate of civilian death inside Gaza is unacceptable and unsustainable,” he added, urging Israel to “immediately reconsider its approach and shift to a more deliberate and proportionate counterterrorism campaign”. The statement came after Senator Dick Durbin became the first member of the 100-seat chamber to publicly support a ceasefire.

CNN published a lengthy report in which it said that “there is an American warning to Israeli officials that time is running out before support erodes,” in the continuation of the intense bombing of Gaza, which has claimed the lives of more than 9,000 people, most of them civilians. The report stated, “US President Joe Biden and his senior advisors are increasingly warning Israel that “it will become difficult for it to achieve its military goals in Gaza, as global anger intensifies over the scale of human suffering in the Strip.” Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is currently visiting Israel with a message about protecting civilian lives, have explicitly raised this issue in recent private conversations with the Israelis, telling them that “the erosion of support will have serious strategic consequences for the military’s operations.” Israeli against Hamas. Behind the scenes, US officials also believe that “Israel has limited time to try to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas in its current operation before the uproar over human suffering and civilian casualties, and calls for a ceasefire, leads to a shift.” Sources told CNN that, in fact, “there is recognition within the US administration that that moment may come quickly, and some of the president’s close advisors believe that there are only weeks, not months, left before he refuses to pressure the US government to publicly call for a halt.” "Shooting is indefensible."