[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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FIVE PREMATURE BABIES have been found dead at a hospital in Gaza City during a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Hamas-run health ministry today said.

Before a temporary truce in the seven-week war came into force on Friday, several hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip had been targeted by Israeli raids, with some evacuated on the orders of the Israeli army.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP that Israeli soldiers had blocked access to the intensive care unit at Al-Nasr paediatric facility, and doctors were finally “able to get into the ward on Tuesday night”.

There, Qudra said, “the occupation (Israeli) forces left five premature babies” who were found “partly decomposed”.

“The soldiers forbade the families from going near” the newborns before Tuesday, he said.

The Israeli army said it was unable to immediately comment on the matter when contacted by AFP.

Earlier this month, the world followed the fate of 39 premature babies trapped in another major Gaza City hospital, Al-Shifa, which was besieged and ultimately raided by Israeli forces.

Eight of the infants died due to a lack of electricity to run their incubators, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Another 31 were evacuated, most of whom went on to Egypt for treatment.

- © AFP 2023

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatens to break apart the government if Israel does not restart its war with Hamas, currently on a negotiated pause.

“Stopping the war = breaking apart the government,” he threatens in a statement.

Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit holds six seats in the coalition, and sports three ministers in the cabinet.

Assuming the continued support of Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would survive a Ben Gvir defection.

Ahh yes, the typical Muslim Brotherhood's way of winning the electroate by promoting state building and anti-corruption policy, we have seen this in Turkey and Egypt; until they turned out to be worse and then the people regret it, so typical.

The case is worse in Lebanon's Shiite community tho, I would say that at least 60-65% of Lebanon's Shiite are really extremely totally brainwashed since they were toddlers in Hezbollah's owned schools; Iran did invest well in changing the culture of the local Shiite community (like what it's doing in Yemen, do you know they're converting Zaidi Shiites to Twelevers Shiites there?).
The Palestinian community has BY FAR more political diversity than the Lebanese Shiite community; and what makes Hezbollahs even worse than Hamas, is their total spiritual allegience to the Iranian regime; imagine you have Americans living on your soil and are totally allegiant to Putin who wouldn't even hestitate to turn arms against their fellow Americans. It's exactly what Hezbos are.

So, what will happen to Hezbollah then when the Islamic Republic of Iran regime collapses? Because I think that their days are numbered.

what will happen to Hezbollah then when the Islamic Republic of Iran regime collapses?

So, what will happen to Hezbollah then when the Islamic Republic of Iran regime collapses? Because I think that their days are numbered.

Israel is middle eastern country not a western one. It would be a mistake to conflate Western Jewish opinion with Israeli Jewish opinion. While Israel was truly divided prior to the war and Bibi
is reviled it is important to note that the massive pre war protests featured a sea of Israeli flag waving, quite the opposite of American protests back in the Vietnam era and in recent years.

This is actually something very insightful and lost on Americans. Israeli Jews are more like their neighbors in terms of their perception of human rights compared to American jews.

Israel renewed its assault on the Gaza Strip early Friday after the end of a weeklong truce with Hamas, pummeling the Palestinian enclave from the air while warning civilians to leave parts of southern Gaza in a sign that it intends to expand its ground offensive.

International mediators said they were still working to restore the cease-fire, which saw the release of more than 100 hostages held in Gaza and 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The pause had raised hopes for a broader deal, but that appeared to have collapsed as the two sides traded blame while smoke rose from Gaza's ruined skyline and sirens wailed in Israeli border communities.

The resumption of fighting will raise fears for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, as well as the remaining 140 or so hostages, as Israel grapples with the tension between its two stated war goals — destroy Hamas and free those taken captive in the Oct. 7 terror attack.

The prospect of Israel expanding its ground campaign southward will also heighten international anxiety, including in the White House, which has warned its close ally to moderate its military tactics to reduce further civilian casualties and displacement.

The pause in fighting, brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, was set to expire at 7 a.m. local time (midnight ET). In the last hour of that deal, Israel said Hamas fired rockets toward its territory from Gaza, at least one of which it managed to intercept, but that “a number” of others got through.

Sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the border with the Palestinian enclave, while an NBC News team in the southern city of Sderot witnessed rockets being intercepted. Israeli officials have not said whether anyone was injured or killed by rockets from Gaza.

Hamas in turn blamed Israel, saying it had refused "throughout the night to accept all offers to release other detainees."

Qatar, which hosts some Hamas leadership, expressed "deep regret" that fighting had resumed without an extension. The government added in a statement that negotiations were continuing.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had "resumed combat" against Palestinian militants, and that “IDF fighter jets are currently striking Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip.” The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had “violated the plan" and "did not live up to its duty to release all the kidnapped women today."

The government media office in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, a banned terror group in the U.S. and elsewhere, said that the Israeli army had begun “to continue its brutal war against our Palestinian people.”

Gazans reported seeing and hearing airstrikes across the enclave's north and south, as well as artillery shelling along the border to the east. Hamas-affiliated media reported heavy gunfire and that clashes were occurring in the north, the focus of Israel's campaign so far. And NBC News' team in Gaza witnessed dead and injured people being taken to hospitals in the center and south of the strip.

"Every 10-15 minutes, there have been strikes, some of it 500 meters (550 yards) away from us," Mohammad Ghalayini, 44, who lives in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, told NBC News in a voice note, with the distinct buzz of an Israeli drone discernible in the background.

Crammed' into southern Gaza
Israel had previously told Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, the focus of its initial military campaign, fueling an exodus of displaced residents now packed into the south of the enclave. But on Friday it dropped new leaflets on Khan Younis, warning residents that it had now become a combat zone and telling them to relocate again to the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

The IDF also published an online interactive map, dividing Gaza into hundreds of zones that it said would be used to warn residents where the fighting would be centered.

Ghalayini, who received one of the leaflets, voiced the common Palestinian belief that this was part of a broader plan to get them to leave Gaza so Israelis can settle there. Although a few Israeli politicians have voiced support for the idea, Netanyahu has said Israel is trying to remove Hamas and does not seek to govern or occupy Gaza.

"One fear is that, when crammed into a smaller area, people will break out through the border and Egypt may have no choice" but to accept them, Ghalayini said.

Now there are also fears of the violence spreading, after a deadly shooting at a bus stop in Jerusalem and an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian health officials said two boys were killed in the Israeli raid, one of them 8 years old.

With most Israelis supportive of a war they see as essential to their own security, Netanyahu has always said that the war would restart with full force after negotiations had run their course.

The U.S. has publicly urged its ally to operate with much greater care for civilians in any renewed military campaign.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said Thursday that he had discussed with Israeli leaders the imperative “that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south.” He added: “As I told the prime minister, intent matters, but so does the result.”

Its not "insightful" it's BS.

Actually its a sweeping generalization about a diverse country, but its mostly BS.

Israel is a European nation located in the Middle East. Its not culturally part of the Middle East. It is not part of the Arab world. Israel was founded by European Jews who brought the European ideas of the Enlightenment and democracy with them. Israel was the only functioning democracy south of Turkey...and hopefully will continue to be a democracy after Netanyahu. The European Jews still dominate the country.

Now here is the small part of his statement that is non BS: After Israel was founded it recieved an influx of migrants of Middle Eastern Jews from the surrounding Arab countries in subsequent decades. Today these "Arab Jews" are about half of the population, and this group never went through Europe's Enlightenment, never experienced democracy until they reached Israel, and are in fact culturally similar to Arabs. But Oriental Jews are still not the ruling elite of Israel. So Israeli society is diverse in attitude but the main culture is still very Western. But its Western tempered by being under siege for decades by surrounding enemies...their attitudes are effected by pragmatism..and not by confroming to their neighbors' attitudes. .

But its Western tempered by being under siege for decades by surrounding enemies...their attitudes are effected by pragmatism..and not by confroming to their neighbors' attitudes. .