J Street Devastated by Escalating Horrors in Gaza and West Bank, J Street
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami writes: “President Trump may say he wants the war to end, yet he continues to give Netanyahu a blank check for an increasingly brutal war. He has given him a free hand to block all humanitarian aid, ignore international law and kill unfathomable numbers of civilians, medics, aid workers and journalists. This doesn’t make Israel safer. Instead, it fuels anti-Israel terror recruitment, alienates the next generation of the Jewish diaspora and pushes Israel into pariah status.”
Netanyahu’s War of Survival: In the Face of Widespread Opposition, Netanyahu Pulls Israel to the Brink, J Street
J Street Policy Fellow and former Chief of Staff to Israel’s Minister for Regional Cooperation, Yael Patir, writes: “Public polling and escalating protests calling for the return of the hostages, and opposing the government’s anti-democratic policies further underscore how sharply Netanyahu’s government is diverging from the Israeli public’s desires. Opinion polls in Israel consistently show that, when presented with a choice between ending the war to secure the release of hostages or returning to full-scale war, approximately 70% of Israelis support the former option, while roughly 30% favour the latter. Strikingly, even among voters who supported Netanyahu’s Likud party in the 2022 elections, 54% support ending the war to release the remaining hostages.”
Netanyahu Sticks By Trump’s Brazen Proposal for Gazans to Leave, The New York Times
“When a reporter asked Mr. Trump on Monday if his Gaza emigration proposal was still on the table, he replied vaguely that it was ‘a concept that I had’ and that people seemed to like, before passing the question over to Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said in a statement last month that Israel was ‘determined to realize the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump.’ He said that checks by his ministry suggested that ‘at least 40 percent of Gaza’s residents are interested in migrating to other places.’”
U.N. Says Israel’s Aid Blockade Has Opened ‘Floodgates of Horror’ in Gaza, The Washington Post
“’More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies,’ António Guterres said in remarks at U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday. ‘As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have reopened. Gaza is a killing field — and civilians are in an endless death loop.’ The comments represented some of the strongest messaging from the United Nations on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza as U.N. agencies sound the alarm over the severity of the aid shortages.”
Facing Calls To Disarm, Hezbollah Ready To Discuss Weapons if Israel Withdraws, Senior Official Says, Reuters
“As calls for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to disarm gain momentum, a senior Hezbollah official told Reuters the group is ready to hold talks with the Lebanese president about its weapons if Israel withdraws from south Lebanon and stops its strikes. U.S.-backed President Joseph Aoun, who vowed when he took office in January to establish a state monopoly on the control of arms, intends to open talks with Hezbollah over its arsenal soon, three Lebanese political sources said.”
In a Break From U.S., British PM Calls for Probe Into Israel’s Killing of Emergency Workers in Gaza, NBC News
“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for a probe into the killing of 15 emergency workers in Gaza after a video appeared to contradict Israel’s account of the incident and it walked back its version of events. ‘There’s got to be an investigation,’ Starmer told the United Kingdom’s lawmakers Tuesday. ‘And we have to be absolutely clear that we’re not just talking about that isolated incident.’”
Indonesia Willing to Temporarily House 1,000 Refugees from Gaza, Times of Israel
“Indonesia is ready to temporarily shelter Palestinians hit by the war in Gaza, the country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, said on Wednesday, estimating there could be 1,000 in the first wave, as he started a trip to the Middle East. Prabowo said he has instructed his foreign minister to quickly discuss with the Palestinian side and other parties about how to evacuate impacted Palestinians to Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country.”
[Podcast] Israeli Soldiers Refusing to Serve in Gaza,
In this episode of NPR’s State of the World podcast, the discussion focuses on Israel’s renewed military campaign in Gaza following the end of the ceasefire with Hamas. Despite the call for reserve troops to return to the front lines, many are now hesitating to rejoin. The podcast features interviews with three Israeli officers who previously led troops in Gaza and are now openly frustrated with the military’s strategy and direction.
‘There’s a Fear’: Why These Palestinians in Israel Didn’t Strike in Support of Gaza, Haaretz
Nagham Zbeedat writes: “Risking your job isn’t something you can afford to do lightly. And that’s exactly how [Palestinians] are controlled. We’re under constant financial pressure, constantly seeking validation from Israeli society. So we end up chasing job security, trying to please our employers, when in the end we’re seen as disposable.”
Trump and Netanyahu Steer Toward an Ugly World, Together, The New York Times
Thomas Friedman writes: “Trump and Netanyahu are engaged, each in his own country, in creating a ‘post-America’ and a ‘post-Israel’ world. By ‘post-America,’ I don’t mean an America that is losing relative power but an America that is deliberately shedding its core identity as a country, on its best days, committed to the rule of law at home and the betterment of all humanity abroad. By ‘post-Israel,’ I mean an Israel that is deliberately shedding its core identity — that of a proudly proclaimed rule-of-law democracy in a region of strongmen that will always prioritize a permanent peace with Palestinians… over ‘a permanent piece’ of the West Bank and Gaza.”