[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

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Perhaps it is late , but I am not sure what exactly this map depicts ? not even sure whose borders are where?

Australia on Tuesday voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, breaking with its position of opposing the measure for two decades.

In a resolution passed by a 157-8 vote, with the United States and Israel among those voting no, and seven abstentions, the Assembly expressed “unwavering support, in accordance with international law, for the two-state solution of Israel and Palestine.”

The Assembly said the two states should be “living side by side in peace and security within recognized borders, based on the pre-1967 borders.”

It called for a high-level international meeting in New York in June 2025, to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, to breathe new life into diplomatic efforts to make the two-state solution a reality.

The assembly called for the “realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the right to their independent state.”

A spokesperson for Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Canberra sought to use its vote to “contribute to peace and a two-state solution.” The last time Australia voted for the resolution was in 2001.

On our own, Australia has few ways to move the dial in the Middle East. Our only hope is working within the international community to push for an end to the cycle of violence and work toward a two-state solution,” the spokesperson said.

Australia’s UN Ambassador James Larsen stood up in support of the resolution at the meeting, saying that “a two-state solution remains the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, the only hope to see a secure and prosperous future for both peoples.”

Australia’s Opposition Leader Peter Dutton slammed the government’s change in policy, charging that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had “sold out” the country’s Jewish community for progressive voters.

“The best we can do for peace in the Middle East is defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and make sure their proxy in Iran does not strike with nuclear weapons, or through the Houthis, or others they are finding because innocent women and children are losing their lives,” he told reporters in Sydney.

The IDF and Shin Bet said Friday that several senior Hamas commanders were killed in recent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, including a leader who masterminded the terror group’s use of paragliders to infiltrate Israel on October 7, 2023.

The military also denied allegations that Israeli forces had targeted north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, amid Palestinian allegations that 29 people were killed there.

The military said Nidal al-Najjar, the commander of Hamas’s aerial forces in Gaza City, was killed in an airstrike Tuesday.

According to the IDF, al-Najjar was among the masterminds behind Hamas’s aerial infiltration of Israel on October 7, 2023, when terrorists in paragliders flew over the border into the south, part of a force that killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

During the ensuing war, al-Najjar was responsible for Hamas’s air defenses and carried out explosive-laden drone attacks against troops operating in Gaza, the IDF said.

Majdi Aqilan, a company commander and deputy commander in Hamas’s Gaza City-based Shati Battalion, was also killed in an airstrike over the past week, the military said.

During the October 7 onslaught, Aqilan was one of the commanders who led the massacre and hostage-taking at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, according to the military.

The strike also killed Mamdouh Mehna, the military said. According to the IDF, Mehna was a senior tunnel specialist in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, and had also participated in the massacre in Nahal Oz.

Ahmed Suwaidan, a company commander in the Shati Battalion, was also killed in the strike, the army said. Suwaidan was involved in abducting Israeli civilians and taking them to Gaza during the Hamas onslaught, according to the IDF.

The army added that the Hamas operatives were also involved in attacks on Israel and troops in Gaza throughout the war.

The truly surprising thing is the quickness with which everything looks normal and reasonable. After a few hours, you find yourself trying hard to be impressed by the magnitude of the destruction, muttering to yourself sentences like "This is madness," but the truth is that you get used to it pretty quickly.

It becomes banal, kitschy. Another heap of stones. Here was probably a building of an official institution, those were homes and this area was a neighborhood. In any direction you look, you see piles of rebar, sand, concrete and cinderblocks. Empty plastic water bottles and dust. All the way to the horizon. To the sea. The eye moves along to a building that is still standing. "Why haven't they taken down this building?" my sister asks on WhatsApp after I sent her a picture. "And also," she added, "why the hell did you go there?"

Why I'm here is less of interest. I'm not the story here. And this is also not an indictment against the Israel Defense Forces. That has a place elsewhere, in editorials, in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, at universities in the United States, at the UN Security Council.

The important thing is to reflect what is happening for the Israeli public. To bring things to the surface. So people won't say afterward that they didn't know. I wanted to know what was happening here. That's what I told all my friends, too many of them to count, who asked me, "Why did you go into Gaza?"

There isn't much to say about the destruction. It's everywhere. It jumps into view when you get closer to what used be a residential neighborhood from the vantage point of a drone: a cultivated garden surrounded by a broken wall and a pulverized house. An improvised shack with a tin roof down an alley. Dark patches in the sand, one next to another: Apparently there was some kind of grove there. Maybe an olive grove. Now is olive harvest season. And there's some movement – a person climbing on a pile of rubble, gathering wood on a sidewalk, crushing something with a stone. All of it seen from a drone's flight path.

The closer you get to logistical routes – Netzarim, Kissufim, Philadelphi – a fewer structures are still standing. The destruction is enormous, and it's here to stay. And this is what people need to know: This thing will not be erased in the next 100 years. No matter how hard Israel tries to make it disappear, to blur it, the destruction in Gaza will define our lives and our children's lives from now on. It's testimony of unbridled rampaging. A friend wrote on the wall of the operations room: "Quiet will be answered by quiet, Nova will be answered by Nakba." The army commanders have adopted this graffiti.

To a military eye, the destruction is inevitable. Fighting a well-equipped enemy in a densely populated urban area means destruction of buildings on a massive scale – or certain death for soldiers. If a brigade commander had to choose between the lives of the soldiers under his command or flattening the territory, an F-15 laden with bombs would already be heading down the runway at Nevatim Air Base and an artillery battery would be lining up the sights. No one is going to take risks. This is war.

Israel can fight like this thanks to the flow of weaponry it's receiving from the United States, and the need to control the territory through minimal manpower is stretched to the limit. This is true of both Gaza and Lebanon. The main difference between Lebanon and the yellow hell around us is the civilians. In contrast to the villages of southern Lebanon, the civilians are still here. Dragging themselves from one nexus of fighting to another, lugging overloaded backpacks, jerricans. Mothers with children trudging along the road. If we have any water, we give it to them. The IDF's technological capabilities have developed impressively in this war. The firepower, the precision, the collection of intelligence by drones: These provide a counterweight to the underworlds that Hamas and Hezbollah built over many years.

You find yourself gazing for hours from a distance at a civilian dragging a suitcase for a few kilometers on Salah al-Din Road. The blazing sun beats down on him. And you try to understand: Is it an explosive device? Is it what's left of his life? You watch people milling around near the tent compound in the middle of the camp, look for explosive devices and stare at drawings on the wall in gray shades of charcoal. Here, for example, is a picture of a butterfly.

This week I did drone surveillance of a refugee camp. I watched two women walking hand in hand. A young guy who went into a half-destroyed house, and disappeared. Maybe he's a Hamas operative and came to deliver a message through a hidden entrance to a tunnel where hostages are being held? From a height of 250 meters (820 feet), I followed someone riding a bike along what had once been a road at the edge of the neighborhood – an afternoon outing in the midst of a catastrophe. At one of the intersections, the cyclist stopped near a house from which a few children emerged, and then he continued into the depths of the refugee camp itself.

All the roofs have holes in them from the bombardments. On all of them are blue barrels for collecting rainwater. If you see a barrel on the road, you have to notify the control center, and mark it as a possible explosive device. Here is a man baking pitas. Next to him is a man sleeping on a mattress. By force of what inertia does life go on? How can a person wake up in the midst of horror like this and find the strength to get up, find food, try to survive? What future is the world offering him? Heat, flies, stench, dirty water. Another day goes by.

I'm waiting for the writer who will come and write about this, a photographer who will document it, but there's only me. Other fighters, if they have any heretical thoughts, are keeping them to themselves. We aren't talking about politicians because they asked, but the truth is that it simply doesn't interest anyone who's done 200 days of reserve duty this year. The reserves are collapsing. Anyone who shows up is already indifferent, bothered by personal problems or by other matters. Children, layoffs, studies, spouses. They fired the defense minister. Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held hostage somewhere here. The schnitzel sandwiches have arrived.

The only ones who get excited about anything are the animals. The dogs, the dogs. Wagging tails, running in huge packs, playing with one another. Chasing down scraps of food that the army has left behind. Here and there they dare to approach vehicles in the dark, try to drag away a box with kabanos sausages and are chased away by a cacophony of shouts. There are also many puppies.

Over the past two weeks the Israeli left wing has been worried about the army digging in on the east-west routes of the Gaza Strip. The Netzarim route, for example. What hasn't been said about it? That it's being paved, that there are five-star bases on it. That the IDF is there to stay, that on the basis of this infrastructure the settlement project in the Strip will rise again.

I don't dismiss these concerns. There are enough crazy people who are just waiting for the opportunity. But the Netzarim and Kissufim routes are combat zones, areas between huge concentrations of Palestinians. A critical mass of despair, hunger and distress. This is not the West Bank. The entrenchment along the route is tactical. More than to ensure a civilian hold on the territory, it's designed to provide security for worn-out soldiers. The bases and the outposts consist of portable structures that can be dismantled and removed on a convoy of trucks within a few days. Of course this could change.

To all of us, from those in the control room to the last of the fighters, it's clear that the government doesn't know a damn thing about how to proceed from here. There are no goals to advance to, no political ability to retreat. Except for in Jabalya, there's hardly any fighting. Only at the edges of the camps. And even this is partial, for fear that hostages might be there. The problem is diplomatic, not military and not tactical. And therefore it's clear to everyone that we will be called up for yet another round, for the exact same missions. Reservists will still come, but fewer of them.

Where's the line between understanding the "complexity" and blind obedience? When have you earned the right to refuse to take part in a war crime? That's less of interest. What's more of interest is when will the Israeli mainstream wake up, when will a leader arise who'll explain to the citizens what a terrible mess we're in, and who will be the first kippah-wearer to call me a traitor. Because before The Hague, before the American universities, before the condemnation in the Security Council, this is first and foremost an internal matter for us. And for 2 million Palestinians.

Ireland's Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Martin received government approval for Ireland to intervene in South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Genocide Convention, Ireland's Foreign Affairs Department announced on Wednesday.

"By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State," the department said in a statement.

"We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimized."

"There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced," the statement read, citing an unconfirmed death toll provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

"Ireland’s view of the convention is broader and prioritizes the protection of civilian life," the statement continued, "Intervening in both cases demonstrates the consistency of Ireland’s approach to the interpretation and application of the Genocide Convention.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is ready to do a deal,” said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday during his seventh trip to Israel in his current role, adding that talks to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release are at “a point where it could get done.”

Speaking to reporters at a Tel Aviv press conference after meeting with Netanyahu earlier in the day, Sullivan rejected the premise that the prime minister was stalling to secure a deal when US President-elect Donald Trump enters office next month: “No, I do not get that sense.”

The US national security adviser — who will also visit Egypt and Qatar, key mediators, during this trip — said that talks to secure a deal are at “a point where it could get done.”

The sides are “close,” he said, and now it is a matter of “bridging that final distance.” He attributed recent progress to the ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Syrian regime, and Israel’s “military progress against Hamas’s infrastructure, formation and senior leadership.”

“The surround sound of these negotiations is different today than it has been,” he said, with Hamas’s posture changed and the group more isolated with the weakening of the Iranian axis.

“I got the sense today from the prime minister [that] he’s ready to do a deal. And when I go to Doha and Cairo, my goal will be to put us in a position to be able to close this deal this month, not later,” he said.

“There is more optimism in the air, shall we say,” adds Sullivan.

“I wouldn’t be here today if I thought this thing was just waiting until after January 20,” Sullivan stressed.

Sullivan averred that what “we need to do is get into the initial phase” of a deal, and “begin to produce the actual releases, the images of hostages being welcomed home to their families, as we saw during the [November 2023] release,” a weeklong truce during which 105 hostages taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023, were freed and 150 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails.

“And then the terms of the deal are built on the idea that there will be ongoing discussions, diplomacy, negotiations to move from phase one to phase two,” said Sullivan, adding that “the basic elements of and the basic framework of [US President Joe Biden’s May proposal] are still alive and part of the discussions that are happening today.”

Sullivan asserted that both sides and the Biden and Trump administrations want “to see this ceasefire and hostage deal and see it now, that is all part of the American contribution to an effort to ultimately produce an outcome here.”

He said the US still believes that three of the seven American hostages in Gaza are alive, though, it does not have definitive proof.

Sullivan also said that Israeli military achievements in recent months have contributed to a potential deal: “Hezbollah can never again rebuild its terror infrastructure to threaten Israel, he said. “Hamas’s leaders are gone, including the terror masterminds of October 7. “Now the Assad regime in Syria is gone.”

When Biden said “Don’t,” Sullivan argued, “this is what he meant.”

“The balance of power in the Middle East has changed significantly,” Sullivan declared. “Israel is stronger, Iran is weaker.”

An Israeli airstrike hit the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, Palestinian medics said, just hours after President Joe Biden's national security adviser raised hopes about a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza.

Officials at two hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Awda Hospital in the north and al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, reported they received a combined total of 25 bodies from an Israeli strike on a multi-story residential building in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp.

Palestinian medics also reported that over 40 people, most of them children, were receiving treatment at the two hospi

Maybe this really is a "time of miracles" [i.e., the approaching Hanukkah holiday] if the right-wing former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon is the one warning the public that the political leadership is engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza. Ya'alon caused a national uproar, but at least he created increased awareness of the issue. On Monday, they finally bothered to air appalling images from the Strip, including women being crushed among the hungry masses storming the line for bread distribution.

These images weren't aired on all the channels, that's already too much to ask from a country in denial. Raviv Drucker's program, "War Zone" (channel 13), aired the CNN report of the crushing that horrified the world. "The images demand our attention," he told the shocked panel members.

Other TV channels continued to ignore the situation in Gaza as well as the video which, in the course of a few minutes, made it clear that the "Generals' Plan" – the starvation plan advocated by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland and other generals – has been implemented, after all. Apparently, for Israeli television, it is enough to show Gazans with reporter Ohad Hemo cursing the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Viewing helpless women crying out from hunger – with some of them crushed to death in their desperate attempt to get out with a bit of flour – one can't be surprised that the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

If only they had aired the pictures, which only Israel is trying to hide, on the other channels, and devoted a respectable amount of time to them, perhaps the presenters and pundits in the studios would show more compassion for those on the other side of the fence, and be capable of seeing the connection between the hunger in Gaza and the hunger suffered by Israeli hostages, as stated by Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon. Alon is greatly concerned, and warns about the danger to the lives of the hostages.

If only the current events broadcasts weren't living in a delusional bubble in which "Israel is fighting for its existence," maybe Yaron Avraham of Channel 12 News wouldn't have interviewed Ya'alon this week in a tone of self-righteous indignation, as though the former chief of staff had betrayed the country, only because he described, without euphemisms, what fascist ministers in the government are saying.

"Often, when we saw these appalling scenes in the past, we hoped that it was staged. It looks as though it wasn't staged. It's terrible distress," stated Drucker. He turned to Alon Ben David, the only military commentator who voices sharp criticism against a war that's dragging on, and doesn't cover up what's happening.

Ben David said that hundreds of aid trucks are standing at the Kerem Shalom crossing, "and some merchandise is rotting and there's nobody to distribute it. Some aid organizations don't want to deal with that. We have a problem, and the worse the winter becomes and the deeper the mud, the harder it will be." That was a rare moment when the viewers learned how genuine survival looks, and not only as a promo for a reality show, which flickered on the side of the screen.

It's true that Hamas is taking control of the aid trucks and firing at the unfortunate Gazans who are trying to grab the food, but it's the government's responsibility to ensure that the food reaches the right hands. We can't send trucks that get stuck along the way and throw up our hands in the air as though it's the other side's logistical problem.

Had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taken time off from his plots to destroy Israel and worked on a genuine alternative to Hamas rule, the famine wouldn't have grown to such dimensions. Only shortly beforehand, on the same channel, a Gaza resident named Sammy Obeid told journalist Arik Weiss that, "There's no food in Gaza and I haven't eaten meat for 72 days."

Drucker discussed Israelis' defensive stance, exemplified by the claim that showing horrific images from Gaza "harms our image." He said, "First, it's harmful to see people in this terrible situation. They aren't Hamas." Those responsible for the harm to our image are first and foremost the political leaders, who are maintaining and exacerbating the distress. It's no wonder that Amnon Levy, who was a guest on the panel, tossed out: "Raviv, which other program will air these images?"

Really, which program? Drucker asked him to let it be, but Levy insisted on the need to talk about it. He's right. Certainly, when these are the images that are seen all over the world. In Israel, we cry "antisemitism' over any criticism of the country's conduct, but overseas they aren't impressed by our collective victimhood.