Israel endangers the entire region

Israel’s military launched 400 attacks on Lebanon on Saturday and Hezbollah fired rockets at the Ramat David base near the city of Haifa, in their largest exchange of fire since the war on Gaza began. At least 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past few hours. Armed Israeli soldiers stormed and shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank for 45 days, forcing staff to leave the premises and destroying equipment. Israel has often targeted Al Jazeera and its journalists, at times going as far as killing them – as it did Shireen Abu Akleh, Samer Abudaqa, Ismail al-Ghoul, and Rami al-Rifi. This is very much in line with the policy of Israel since 1948 to prevent real news about Palestinians or about what the state of Israel is doing to Palestinians colonizing them, arresting them, and torturing them. At 3 am, heavily armed Israeli soldiers raided the office of Al Jazeera in Ramallah, throwing the team out. On live television, heavily armed Israeli soldiers raided Al Jazeera’s occupied West Bank bureau in Ramallah and handed the bureau head, Walid al-Omari, a notice to shut it down. The soldiers ordered everyone working the overnight shift at the bureau to leave, telling them they could take only their personal belongings. The closure order accuses Al Jazeera of incitement and supporting terrorism. Al Jazeera is the primary instrument for informing the world about Israel’s violations in Palestinian territory. The soldiers told the entire team working in the bureau overnight to leave. Initially, the soldiers asked them that they should leave with their personal belongings and cameras. However, they had to leave the cameras in the office in the end. The order came from the Israeli military authority despite the bureau being in Area A, an area delineated as being under Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords. If Ramallah is under Palestinian control, how can Israel do this? This is not the first time Israel has undertaken actions in the Oslo Accords-defined Area A, where Ramallah is and where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has its seat. One year ago, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland reported that, just between June and September last year, there had been many Palestinian casualties. The other two areas in the occupied West Bank are Area B, which the PA also administers on paper, sharing security control with Israel. Area C is under complete Israeli control. Regardless of legal jurisdiction, Israel has acted with impunity across the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military continues to pound southern Lebanon with air strikes. Israeli forces shot three Palestinians, including two children, during a raid in the Old City of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces killed at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, including 22 displaced Palestinians in an attack on the Zeitoun School. At least 41,391 individuals underwent killing and 95 suffered injuries in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 was at least 1,139 while more than 200 people experienced captivity. The lengthy lop-sided fighting between Israeli defense forces and Palestinian Hamas has been causing immense insecurity in the entire region since October 2023. The Biden Administration seems serious about the ceasefire due to the presidential elections in the United States in November 2024, but Prime Minister Netanyahu and his religiously radicalized allies in the Israeli Parliament are striving for absolute victory for their political survival. Washington’s double approach, verbally supporting the ceasefire and concurrently providing enormous military aid to Israel, has inspired feverish Netanyahu cruelty, which has transformed the entire region into a time bomb waiting to explode.