Tag: israel

Netanyahu greenlights death penalty bill for Palestinian prisoners

The National Security Committee in Israel’s Knesset is moving forward with a bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks and operations that killed Israelis. 

According to the Israeli government’s top official on captives’ affairs, Gal Hirsch, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports the move. 

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has long called for the execution of Palestinian prisoners, thanked Netanyahu for supporting the bill in a post on social media. 

“I thank the prime minister for his support for Otzma Yehudit’s bill for the death penalty for terrorists, but the court must not have any discretion – every terrorist who goes out to murder must know that the death penalty will be imposed on him. It’s time for justice!” Ben Gvir said. 

Israeli media reports said the bill could have its first reading as soon as Wednesday. 

“The extremist and terrorist Israeli government once again proves, through this decision, that it feeds off the blood and suffering of prisoners in its jails,” said the Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Defense. “The repercussions of this fascist step will be even more bloody and will drag the entire region into a new cycle of uncertainty whose consequences no one can predict.”

Lawmakers in the Knesset National Security Committee already voted 4-1 in favor of the bill on 28 September.

The bill – which does not apply to Israelis who kill Palestinians – requires another three votes in a full Knesset session before it is passed into law. 

At the time of the vote, Ben Gvir came under fire within Israel for pushing the execution bill at a time when Israeli captives were still held in Gaza. 

The National Security Minister threatened on 20 October to stop voting with the ruling coalition if the death penalty bill did not pass its first reading within three weeks. 

Prior to the formation of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, Ben Gvir had been demanding the death penalty for Palestinians and, at one point, even made the demand as a condition for his joining the government.

Since assuming the role of national security minister, Ben Gvir has tightened the already repressive measures against Palestinians in the Israeli prison system.

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Prosecutor Who Exposed Sde Teiman Rape Video Missing After Netanyahu Calls It ‘Israel’s Most Dangerous Attack’

Israeli police have launched a search for outgoing military prosecutor Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, who admitted leaking a video showing Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian hostage at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility in the occupied Negev.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Yerushalmi has been missing for several hours. Police found her car abandoned near a Tel Aviv beach early Sunday morning. Israel Hayom reported that she left a farewell letter inside the vehicle, while Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, said she also left a suicide note at her home.

A senior police source told Haaretz there are serious concerns for her life.

The disappearance comes a few hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the video leak as “the most dangerous propaganda attack in Israel’s history.”

Speaking at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the footage caused “massive damage to Israel’s image, its army, and its soldiers.” He called for an independent investigation into the leak, which has deeply shaken Israel’s political and military establishment.

The leaked video shows Israeli soldiers torturing and raping a Palestinian hostage at the Sde Teiman base, often referred to by Israeli activists as a “human slaughterhouse.” The recording, from July 2024, spread widely online, sparking outrage abroad but mainly panic within Israel’s leadership over reputational damage and the risk of international prosecution.

Following the leak, right-wing activists, including several Israeli ministers, stormed the base to show support for the soldiers, who committed the assault, denouncing their arrest and framing them as heroes.

A Haaretz investigation published Sunday revealed that Yerushalmi, who was dismissed last week by Defense Minister Israel Katz, had for months avoided launching probes into incidents in Gaza that could constitute war crimes.

Military correspondent Yaniv Kubovich reported that Yerushalmi deliberately froze several sensitive cases due to threats and incitement from Israel’s far-right circles following her involvement in the Sde Teiman affair.

“She felt threatened and stopped making decisions out of fear of personal attacks,” a senior army source told the paper.

Among the cases she ignored was the killing of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in Deir al-Balah in April 2024. An internal field investigation found that the strike violated operational orders, but Yerushalmi chose not to refer it to military police.

A reserve officer told Haaretz that Yerushalmi also refused to open investigations into the killing of 15 medical staff members in Gaza in March 2024, despite documented evidence and calls from inquiry committees.

According to sources quoted by Haaretz, Yerushalmi had received direct threats at her home and workplace.

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Whitewashing the Gaza Gas Exploration

In 2019, UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) reported that the occupied territories lie above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth in Area C of the occupied West Bank and off the Gaza Strip. However, as UNCTAD warned, the Israeli occupation has prevented Palestinians from developing their energy fields.

The missed opportunities added up.

Palestinians’ ransacked energy wealth

Based on the 2010 US Geological survey, the discoveries of oil and natural gas in the Levant Basin amounted to 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. In 2023 US dollars, the value of these resources translated to $557 billion and $87 billion, respectively. At the eve of October 7, that was about $644 billion in total.

By 2018, 18 years had passed since the drilling of Marine 1 and Marine 2 offshore Gaza. As the Palestinian Authority had not been able to exploit these fields, the accumulated losses were already in billions of dollars. Even in the West, the Israeli stance was seen as needlessly harsh.

In February 2021, amid the covid-19 fog of the pandemic years, talks on a gas pipeline that would deliver reliable energy to the impoverished Gaza seemed to move ahead. The plan would see natural gas from the deepwater Leviathan field operated by Chevron in the eastern Mediterranean flow through an existing pipeline into Israel, and from there into Gaza through a proposed new extension. The Israeli side of the planned pipeline would be funded by Qatar and the section in Gaza paid for by the European Union.

After a painful seven-year pause, the pipeline project was expected to provide “a steady energy source to Gaza, ending rolling blackouts that have helped cripple the economy of the blockaded Palestinian enclave.” Control over these energy resources was a central element in Yasser Arafat’s state-building agenda. As Michael Barron, an energy consultant who has written on Gaza’s energy concurs, “Israeli exploitation of Palestinian resources was and remains a central part of the conflict.”

But the Netanyahu cabinets’ intransigence is working against Israel’s long-term interest in peace and stability. In particular, the recognition of the Palestinian state, especially by countries like the UK and Italy with large energy firms registered in their jurisdiction (BG and ENI, respectively), could clarify the legal ambiguity. It could ensure the Palestinian Authority with a secure source of income that is no longer reliant on Israel.

But that has never been acceptable to the Netanyahu cabinets. 

Illegal offshore tenders amid huge onshore destruction

In December 2022, Israeli Ministry of Energy launched the Fourth Offshore Bid Round offering new exploration licenses. A year later, it awarded licenses to several Israeli and international companies: Eni (Italy), Dana Petroleum (UK, a subsidiary of a South Korean company), and Ratio Petroleum (Israel). The problem is that these tenders violated international law, however.

Nonetheless, just a few months later in June 2023, following years of stalled talks, Israel approved the development of the Gaza Marine field, while Egypt’s state-owned EGAS (Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company) was to lead extraction efforts in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. Nonetheless, Israel stipulated that Hamas must not benefit financially.

Ironically, PM Netanyahu had for years ensured, as part of his Gaza strategy, that Hamas can receive multi-million-dollar shipments, via intermediation. The double-faced ploy used Hamas to disrupt the Palestinian Authority (PA), to keep Gaza weak and ultimately to reap the gas benefits to Israel.

As a net effect, active gas exploration or production could not commence due to the ongoing tensions in and around the Strip, which undermined investment and infrastructure development. The resulting stalemate status quo harmed Egypt’s mediation and interest in fostering regional energy stability.

As Israel initiated its ground assault in Gaza a week after October 7, 2023, Energy Minister Israel Katz pledged on X that “all the civilian population in Aza [Gaza’s Hebraized name] is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”

But Netanyahu’s veteran Likud ally had another, equally destructive role. It was Katz’s Ministry that awarded the exploration licenses to the companies on October 29, 2023, violating international law – just two days after the lethal fury of the full-scale invasion in Gaza of the Israeli military. If it wasn’t pre-planned, it was certainly most convenient.

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Arab League chief exposes secret US deal shielding Israel’s nukes

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has revealed what he described as a “secret agreement” between the United States and “Israel,” under which Washington pledged to remain silent about “Israel’s” nuclear arsenal in exchange for its permanent secrecy.

In a televised interview with Egypt’s Sada El-Balad channel, Aboul Gheit explained that “the agreement stipulates that Israel pledges never to speak, no matter how many centuries pass, about its nuclear arsenal, while America, in turn, promises to remain silent.”

The Arab League chief accused Washington of deceiving Arab nations, recalling meetings in Cairo and Washington where US officials urged Egypt to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in return for US pressure on “Israel” to follow suit. “Egypt refused,” he said, noting that such pressure “never materialized.”

US protects Israeli nuclear weapons

Aboul Gheit attributed the global silence surrounding “Israel’s” undeclared nuclear weapons to US protection, describing “Israel” as being “shielded by the dominant military-political pole that has ruled the world since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1990.”

The former Egyptian foreign minister further explained that Cairo has deliberately refrained from ratifying conventions on chemical or biological weapons, emphasizing that it “saw no need for a nuclear deterrent” because “its drawbacks far outweigh any potential benefit.”

He added that Egyptian diplomacy has consistently advocated for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, asserting that international inspections of “Israel’s” nuclear facilities could become “inevitable”.

Aboul Gheit concluded by warning that such developments could trigger a regional existential crisis, compelling Washington to reconsider its long-standing protection of “Israel,” noting that “Israel couldn’t even use its nuclear weapons during the 1973 war.”

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Haaretz Report: Lynch Mobs, Arson, and Slaughtered Animals Mark Unprecedented Israeli Settler Violence Across the West Bank

A new investigative report from Haaretz exposes a shocking escalation of settler and military-backed violence across the occupied West Bank — a campaign marked by organized lynch mobs, arson attacks, and the slaughtering of Palestinian livestock, described by local witnesses as “terror under the guise of security.”

The report, titled “Lynch Mobs, Arson, Slaughtered Animals: The West Bank Faces Unprecedented Israeli Violence,” catalogs a wave of brutality unleashed by armed settler militias over the past months, often operating with protection or open collaboration from Israeli soldiers. The evidence paints a grim picture of systemic state-sanctioned aggression and near-total impunity for the perpetrators.

A Campaign of Terror Across the Hills

According to eyewitnesses cited by Haaretz, coordinated settler groups have attacked dozens of Palestinian villages, burning homes, destroying crops, and setting herds ablaze. Livestock — a lifeline for many rural families — has been massacred in acts of intimidation designed to drive Palestinians from their land.

Residents recounted scenes of coordinated terror. “They came after midnight with rifles and masks,” one witness said. “They torched the fields, shot the sheep, and beat anyone who tried to stop them.”

The report highlights that these raids have intensified in scope and brutality since early summer. With Israeli military forces stationed mere kilometers away, settlement militias have acted freely — sometimes escorted by soldiers, according to the testimonies.

Human Rights Monitors Sound Alarm

Israeli rights groups, including Yesh Din and B’Tselem, confirmed that violent settler incursions have dramatically risen since the Gaza war’s escalation. In recent weeks, entire Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills and northern Jordan Valley were reportedly forced to flee following repeated armed assaults.

Yesh Din’s monitoring team described the situation as “a campaign of terror being carried out under state protection.” Footage and testimonies published through Haaretz indicate Israeli forces not only failed to intervene but, in several cases, actively shielded settlers from consequences.

“The army now behaves as a protective arm of the settlers,” one source told Haaretz. “Every complaint filed by a farmer or herder ends up buried — or worse, punished.”

Independent footage shared by journalist Jasper Nathaniel on X reinforces those accounts. His video, filmed near one of the recently attacked villages, shows soldiers standing by as masked settlers torch fields and chase fleeing residents — evidence, he wrote, of “open collaboration between military units and armed settlers.”

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Secret details of Israel’s mammoth deal with Google and Amazon revealed – media

Israel has forced US tech giants Google and Amazon to violate their own legal obligations under a 2021 cloud services contract with West Jerusalem, according to a joint investigation by several news media outlets, including The Guardian.

The Jewish state’s contracts with US tech platforms have been under close scrutiny following widespread accusations, including from the UN, that its military response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed over 1,200 people constitutes a genocide.

Known as Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion deal reportedly bars the firms from restricting the Israeli government’s access to cloud services they provide, even if it violates their terms of use, the reports, carried by The Guardian along with +972 Magazine and Local Call, suggest.

The deal also reportedly requires the two companies to secretly notify West Jerusalem using a so-called “winking mechanism” should any foreign state or court seek access to Israeli data stored in the cloud.

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Trump calls Israel’s latest Gaza massacre justified; 104 Palestinians, including 46 children killed

Israel massacred another 104 Palestinians, including 46 children, inside Gaza after claiming that its forces came under attack, winning the approval from President Donald Trump, who said Israel “should hit back.”

Israel has been violating the Kushner-Witkoff ceasefire since it was put in place earlier this month, with the full support of the Trump administration. The Israelis understand that all they have to do is float an allegation of a looming Hamas attack and they can resume attacks inside the destroyed enclave.

The Associated Press reported:

Hamas replied in kind on Wednesday, saying the Israeli strikes reveal “a clear Israeli intention to undermine the ceasefire agreement and impose new realities by force.” The group also said in a statement that the U.S. is offering Netanyahu a “political cover” to carry on with its aggression in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who Trump once called a “perfect Adelson puppet,” summed up the administration’s position after another deadly Israeli strike on Saturday, saying, “Israel didn’t surrender its right to self-defense. Obviously, the ceasefire is based on obligations on both sides. Israel has a right to self-defense, terrorist activity is an imminent threat to Israel.”

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Shocking scenes as huge crowds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis protesting against military conscription throw bottles at female reporter before boy, 15, falls to his death during demonstration

A massive rally of ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis protesting against military conscription today turned violent as the crowd threw bottles at a female reporter and a teenage boy fell to his death. 

A packed crowd of an estimated 200,000 people, mostly men, clogged the roads around the Route 1 highway leading into Jerusalem today. 

Photos showed many had climbed atop roofs of buildings, a gas station and onto cranes.  

Video footage showed the agitated crowd stalking a female reporter from Israeli news outlet V1 who was covering the event before chucking glass bottles at her.  

Crowds of men set fire to pieces of tarpaulin as hundreds of police officers cordoned off several roads across the city. 

Demonstrators packed onto the tops of buildings, petrol stations, bridges and balconies above a sea of fellow protesters, some of whom held signs declaring: ‘Better to go to prison than to the army.’

A helicopter flew overhead as people gathered to take part in collective prayers. 

The Israeli ambulance service said a 15-year-old fell to his death and police said they had opened an investigation into the incident.

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Israel Declares Gaza Ceasefire Back on After It Kills Over 100 Palestinians, Including 46 Children

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that it was re-implementing the ceasefire in Gaza after unleashing heavy airstrikes across the Strip that, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, killed at least 104 Palestinians, including 46 children, and 20 women, though it bombed the Strip again later in the day.

The escalation came after Israel claimed that its troops in Rafah came under attack, which killed one Israeli soldier. Israel accused Hamas of being behind the attack, but according to Israeli media, the IDF doesn’t know if the attack was approved by Hamas leadership or if it was carried out independently by a cell of Palestinian fighters isolated in the Israeli-occupied area. Israel’s Walla news reported that the attack started when Israeli troops were using heavy equipment in the area and a tunnel the militants were hiding in began to collapse.

For its part, Hamas denied involvement and said that it had “no relation to the shooting incident in Rafah and reaffirms its commitment to the cease-fire agreement.” Israel claimed that the bombardment that killed mostly women and children targeted 30 “terror commanders.”

Israeli media reports said that Israel was ready to launch heavy airstrikes in Gaza before the incident and Rafah over claims that Hamas was violating the deal based on a video Israel said showed Hamas staging the discovery of an Israeli body. But the US said there was no evidence Hamas breached the deal and objected to the escalation.

Israel has been violating the Gaza ceasefire deal since it went into effect on October 10 by not allowing the agreed-upon number of aid trucks to enter the Strip, and has also continued attacks in Gaza, killing about 100 before the major escalation on Tuesday. Later on Wednesday, Israel launched another airstrike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, killing at least two people.

Despite the breaches, the US hasn’t offered any public criticism of Israel’s actions and has backed the massive bombardment. “They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Israel for Slaughtering Dozens of Children in Gaza

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday called out Israel for its heavy bombardment in Gaza and the killing of dozens of children in the Strip.

“Israel’s military said Wednesday that the ceasefire was back on in Gaza after it killed 104 people, including 46 children, according to local health officials,” Greene wrote on X. “46 CHILDREN!!! Are these not war crimes?”

Israel’s heavy airstrikes that began on Tuesday pounded targets across Gaza and also killed 20 women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry said that another 253 people were wounded, including 78 children and 84 women.

In recent months, Greene has been outspoken in her opposition to US military aid to Israel and has introduced bills attempting to strip assistance to Israel from the annual Pentagon spending bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

Back in July, Greene became the first Republican in Congress to label Israel’s campaign in Gaza a genocide. “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” she said.

Greene has also clashed with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC after it attacked her in response to her criticism of Israel. “The truth is AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist by US law because they are representing the secular government of nuclear armed Israel 100%!!!” Greene wrote on X in August.

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