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At this critical juncture, Palestine’s leaders should come together to craft a clear strategy for reunifying the Palestinian people As Israel continues its war on Gaza, which is causing loss of life and displacement at a scale that has led to it being labeled a “genocide” by various experts, the Palestinian liberation struggle is at a critical juncture. Despite undoubtedly recognising the importance of the current moment, however, Palestinian political factions, including Hamas and Fatah among others, appear unable to come together and lay out a coherent and realistic vision for the future of Palestine. It’s imperative for them to set aside their differences, acknowledge their moral responsibilities to the nation, and come together to craft a clear strategy for reunifying the Palestinian people. Such a strategy must not only thwart Israel’s well-defined and openly discussed plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza and detach it from the Palestinian homeland, but also respond to Israeli efforts to displace Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel itself. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 ‘We won’t leave’: Armenians in Jerusalem push back against armed settlers list 2 of 4 A second Nakba? What history tells us about Palestine and Israel list 3 of 4 Israeli forces open fire to stop people returning to north Gaza list 4 of 4 ‘The war is not over’: Israel blocks Palestinians’ return to northern Gaza end of list As a Palestinian from Gaza, I believe at this point in the conflict, opportunities are ripe for putting an end to the ongoing war in Gaza, uniting the Palestinian factions, and launching a new political path to end the occupation. There are 10 clear steps that could and should be taken, starting with Palestinian leaders, to achieve this and put our nation on a direct path towards justice, peace and statehood:

A truce has been agreed upon between Israel and Hamas amid new attacks on journalists – here are the major updates. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.605.0_en.html#goog_1823972955PauseMuteCaptions DisclaimerClosed CaptionsFullscreenCloseGaza humanitarian pause deal ‘biggest breakthrough’ in 47 days of fighting Here is what to know about the truce, fighting and international developments on Wednesday, November 22, 2023: Truce Latest developments and fighting https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.605.0_en.html#goog_1823972953Play Video Video Duration 07 minutes 20 seconds07:20Israeli strike kills three journalists near Lebanon border International developments https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.605.0_en.html#goog_1823972954Play Video Video Duration 05 minutes 56 seconds05:56US defence secretary holds latest call with Israeli counterpart. Arrests and attacks in the occupied West Bank

dor in one video. A former senior US official is facing a backlash after harassing a halal food vendor in New York. Stuart Seldowitz, who previously served as deputy director of the United States Department of State’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, was captured on video taunting and threatening the vendor in Manhattan. Amid the apparent argument over the ongoing Gaza war, he told his adversary that more Palestinian children should die. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 UN’s anti-Islamophobia day ‘to stamp out anti-Muslim hatred’ list 2 of 4 Revisiting Canada’s homegrown Islamophobia list 3 of 4 Islamophobia, anti-Semitism rises in Europe amid Israel-Hamas war: Official list 4 of 4 Canadian man found guilty of murdering Muslim family in truck attack end of list https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1726986614591885484&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F11%2F22%2Fex-us-diplomat-goes-on-islamophobic-rant-wishes-more-dead-palestinian-kids&sessionId=5341e6a887f788a3d7415e369a674db3c7ba8a0d&theme=light&widgetsVersion=01917f4d1d4cb%3A1696883169554&width=550px “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough,” Seldowitz says calmly in one exchange captured on video and posted on the social media platform X. In other exchanges, he’s heard casting slurs against Prophet Muhammad. He also threatens to use his government connections to mobilise Egypt’s secret police against the vendor, who he accuses of being a “terrorist”. “The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one,” Seldowitz says smiling. The vendor is heard repeatedly asking him to leave and telling him he does not speak English. Seldowitz says the vendor’s lack of English fluency shows he is “ignorant”. “You should learn English, it’ll help you when they deport you back to Egypt and the Mukhabarat wants to interview you,” he tells the vendor with a grin. US government experience Seldowitz reportedly had a distinguished career with the State Department. He also served on the National Security Council’s South Asia Directorate under then-President Barack Obama and went on to become foreign affairs chair at New York lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, according to a 2022 press release from the company. The former diplomat admitted in an interview with The New York Times that he had gotten angry with the Manhattan vendor and said things he “probably [regrets]”. He claimed the vendor enraged him after expressing sympathies for the Palestinian group Hamas, although none of the videos shows the vendor mentioning the group. “I got rather upset and I’ve said things to him, that in retrospect, I probably regret,” Seldowitz told the newspaper. “Instead of focusing in on him and what he said, I expanded into insulting his religion and so on.” Seldowitz insisted that he is not Islamophobic, saying that he has many Muslim and Arab colleagues who could vouch for him. Gotham Government Relations on Tuesday said it had severed all ties with Seldowitz and apparently scrubbed his profile from their website. The firm’s CEO, David Schwartz, said he was “personally outraged and offended by” Seldowitz’s “vile” language and offered to legally represent the food vendor pro bono. The incident underscores growing tensions globally and in the US over the 47-day war in Gaza, which has killed at least 14,100 Palestinians, more than a third of them children. Since October 7, frequent pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrations have taken place in New York, which has large Muslim and Jewish populations.

Group of 28 infants evacuated from the besieged al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City arrive in Egypt. A group of 28 premature babies has been evacuated from al-Shifa Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip and taken to Egypt for urgent treatment as Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have attacked another hospital in northern Gaza. The newborns had been patients at al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest medical facility, where several others had died after their incubators stopped working for a lack of fuel as medical services collapse during the Israeli military’s ground and air assault on Gaza City. KEEP READING list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3 Why does Israel target Palestinian hospitals? Psyops, say analysts list 2 of 3 ‘No end in sight’: Gaza’s traumatised children need psychological aid list 3 of 3 The Take: Piles of corpses, dying babies – al-Shifa Hospital’s catastrophe end of list The babies were transported on Sunday to Al-Helal L-Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, so their condition could be stabilised before making the trip to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing on Monday. “Three babies still remain at the Emirati hospital and continue to receive treatment,” a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson told the Reuters news agency. “All babies are fighting serious infections and continue needing health care.” Last week, Israeli forces seized al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, to search for what they said was a Hamas tunnel network and command centre built underneath the complex. Hamas has denied the allegations. During the Israeli operation, hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people left al-Shifa at the weekend and moved to the southern Gaza Strip. Since al-Shifa doctors have raised the alarm about the situation at the hospital for premature babies and the lack of clean water and medicines in the neonatal ward, eight infants have died, according to hospital officials. Attack on Indonesian Hospital At another hospital in northern Gaza, at least 12 people were killed by artillery fire on Monday and dozens wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. The ministry said hundreds of people were trapped at the facility, which was encircled by Israeli tanks. Reporting from the hospital, journalist Anas al-Sharif described the scenes inside as “chaotic”. “There is an overwhelming state of panic among patients,” he told Al Jazeera. “Victims are piling up on the floor.” The WHO’s chief said the United Nations agency was “appalled” by the attack on the Indonesian Hospital. “Health workers and civilians should never have to be exposed to such horror, and especially while inside a hospital,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1726615275968081978&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F11%2F20%2Fdozens-of-premature-babies-evacuated-from-gaza-to-egypt&sessionId=504cbbaf9f4c128608e883d129fd81c323d9e9cf&theme=light&widgetsVersion=01917f4d1d4cb%3A1696883169554&width=550px Indonesia’s foreign minister condemned the attack on the hospital, which was built in 2016 and funded by Indonesia, and called it a “clear violation of international humanitarian laws”. “All countries, especially those that have close relations with Israel, must use all their influence and capabilities to urge Israel to stop its atrocities,” Retno Marsudi said. “We are very concerned about the fate of our colleagues and the fate of wounded and patients as well as [displaced] people who may have still [been] sheltering there. No ambulances can reach them, and we’re afraid the wounded will die,” said Nahed Abu Taaema, director of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. Like most hospitals and clinics in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, the Indonesian Hospital has largely ceased operations but is sheltering patients, staff and displaced people who have sought shelter at the site after Israel launched its assault on Gaza last month. As fighting continues between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza, US and Israeli officials said a Qatari-mediated deal to free some of the captives held in the Palestinian enclave and pause fighting temporarily to enable aid deliveries to stricken civilians was edging closer. About 240 hostages were taken during a deadly assault on southern Israel by Hamas on October 7. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to Israeli tallies. After the attack, Israel promised to topple the armed group, which has governed Gaza since 2007, and it launched a devastating bombardment and ground offensive on Gaza. At least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, according to Palestinian officials.

Making a maintenance trip in Gaza now literally means taking your life into your own hands. Why do they do it? Published On 21 Nov 202321 Nov 2023 It was a little after 10 pm when Ahmad* was called by the Network Operation Centre at the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PalTel). It was the third week of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the main data centre in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City had lost power, threatening to shut off all communications in the area. To check on the centre, the PalTel electrician would have to make his way across the city during intense Israeli aerial bombardment, putting his life in danger. But he did not hesitate. He flagged down a passing ambulance, hoping it would provide him with a degree of safety from Israeli attacks. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Israeli state TV video shows children singing about Gaza list 2 of 4 The Take: The genocide lawsuit against Joe Biden list 3 of 4 ‘Israel’s army tanks are here. We are facing imminent death in Gaza City’ list 4 of 4 Hospitals in northern Gaza completely out of service: Health official end of list “I told the driver that if I could not restore the generator, people like him wouldn’t be able to reach injured civilians. We are no better nor less important than medical staff – a phone call can save lives,” Ahmad said. Once at the centre, Ahmad set to work. By 2am, he had repaired the generator, allowing the telecommunications network to keep operating. He decided to stay in the building until dawn, slipping out around the freshly fallen debris to go home during a lull in Israeli bombing. “Thank God my family was OK and I lived to see another day. This is my work and my life. … I do this every day,” he said. Ahmad’s tale has become almost routine among the 750 PalTel staff in Gaza who, despite living through bombing, displacement and death, risk life and limb to keep the telecoms network running. The cost of keeping Gaza connected has been high. At least five PalTel staff members in Gaza have been killed in Israeli attacks while many other staff members have lost family members, including wives and children. Samir*, one of the staff members killed, had spent 10 hours shuttling fuel between data towers before returning home. Just 15 minutes later, Samir and his brother were killed in an Israeli air raid on their building. Humanitarian workers and journalists have said the operation of communication networks in Gaza is essential for rescue services and for documenting the reality of conditions on the ground to the outside world. More than 13,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Videos of desperate family members and civil defence scrabbling through the rubble of bombed-out buildings to rescue civilians trapped underneath have inspired shock and horror the world over. Preparing for war On the first day of its offensive on Gaza on October 7, Israel cut electricity to the territory. Despite the lack of power and the constant bombing, Gaza’s telecoms network stayed operational for almost six weeks. The CEO of PalTel said this is because the company has been preparing for war for “over 15 years”, embedding emergency contingencies in its Gaza infrastructure at every step. “We have faced a lot of different incidents during the previous wars. We’re doing more protection than any other operator,” CEO Abdul Majeed Melhem told Al Jazeera. PalTel’s Gaza network was built during Israel’s siege of the enclave, which requires that each piece of equipment be approved by Israeli authorities before entering Gaza, making repairs difficult. Recurrent wars on Gaza and frequent bombing campaigns by Israel have damaged civilian infrastructure, so to brace itself for a sustained conflict like the current one, the telecoms network is built like no other. While most telecom networks bury their cables 60cm (about 2ft) underground, PalTel buries its cables up to 8 metres (26ft)  deep. In case the Israelis cut off electricity, its data centres in Gaza also have three layers of redundancy: generators, solar panels and batteries. The company has also developed emergency protocols to direct workers remotely from the occupied West Bank, and if severed communications make this impossible, Gazan staff are empowered to act autonomously. Advertisement Despite all the redundancies and preparations, the sheer scale of bombings these past weeks has still crippled the network. About 70 percent of the mobile network has been taken offline. Solar panels have been rendered mostly useless either by being destroyed in attacks or covered in dust and debris. The relentless nature of the conflict is also weighing on staff, who are dogged by danger from their house to the field. Rabih*, a fibre optics technician, was called to repair a cable just metres from the border on October 15. Prior to going, he had to give an exhaustive list of the repair team’s names, the colour of their cars and registration numbers to the Israelis, because “a mistake could be deadly”. As Rabih and his team laboured for two hours to fix the cable, the buzz of a drone above him and the sounds of shelling intermingled with the sound of their excavator. “Any wrong move could mean being targeted. I cannot explain to my wife and kids why I do that or why I volunteer to go out during the war. My company doesn’t oblige me, but if someone can do it, it has to be me,” he said. Staff in the West Bank watch their colleagues in Gaza from afar with bated breath, hesitant to ask them to check on damaged equipment, knowing that a simple repair trip could cost them their lives. Gaza-based staff are under no obligation to go into the field, but most have been eager to volunteer despite the dangers. “It is very difficult to call my colleagues who are under bombardment and ask them to go out. I feel afraid that if one of them gets

A break in hostilities could benefit Israel militarily, even though it could hurt Prime Minister Netanyahu politically. Published On 21 Nov 202321 Nov 2023 Claims and denials of a potential ceasefire in Gaza continue. Some reports refer to a three-day pause in fighting, while others extend the truce to a full five days. Still, others claim the ceasefire could begin imminently. And so on. Even statements from the horse’s mouth differ. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied the report published by The Washington Post on Saturday that a tentative deal had been reached; a United States representative confirmed that talks were continuing but that a breakthrough was still awaited. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Israeli state TV video shows children singing about Gaza list 2 of 4 The Take: The genocide lawsuit against Joe Biden list 3 of 4 ‘Israel’s army tanks are here. We are facing imminent death in Gaza City’ list 4 of 4 Hospitals in northern Gaza completely out of service: Health official end of list On Sunday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced in Doha that the differences remaining between Hamas and Israel were “very minor”. Qatar has been central to mediation efforts in the war, including for the release of Israeli captives. The last to be heard on the subject was Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who on Tuesday told Reuters news agency that the parties are “close to reaching a truce agreement”. Another Hamas official told Al Jazeera that negotiations were centred on the duration of the truce, details of aid delivery to Gaza and the exchange of hostages and prisoners. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. With most parties involved looking to temporarily halt the carnage in Gaza, one must hope for the small step to a temporary respite. It is also prudent to examine why the two warring sides are considering such a hiatus. While such a pause would benefit Hamas politically, militarily there seems to be no obvious gain — as I’ll explain on Wednesday. For Israel, on the other hand, pausing the war could be advantageous from a military point of view and disadvantageous from a political one. The Israeli war machine has been going at full strength for six weeks in the air and three weeks on the ground in Gaza. Since the Hamas attacks, Israel’s aerial bombardment has continued at a surprisingly high rate. It was clear from day one that the primary purpose of such merciless pounding of Palestinian civilian targets was not military. Initially, many analysts believed that the intense aerial attacks served to demonstrate to the Israeli populace that the armed forces were doing something and that bombing would be eased once land forces moved in. Even a country that boasts of its preparedness for war needs to maintain substantial reserves of weapons and ammunition. Omar Bradley, a US Army general during World War II, once said “amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics”. Israeli forward commanders may be eager to continue pounding Gaza come what may, but the rear echelon has done the maths and does not like the result. There are reliable reports escaping the net of military secrecy that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is running out of smart bombs. It is always difficult to judge the credibility of allegations in military matters. Sometimes an officer who is disillusioned with his side — especially when it is fighting outside its borders or inflicting heavy civilian losses — will anonymously leak crucial details. Several specialised online forums claim that the IAF, having expended more than 2,500 joint direct attack munition (JDAM) smart bomb kits over Gaza, has just 10 days of stocks remaining. Every military regulates how much ammunition must remain in reserve for emergencies. Exact figures are a guarded secret, but everything points to Israel’s quartermasters having sounded alarms, asking for urgent replenishment. Specialised military items can be bought to fill gaps. In 1973, when Israel was on the verge of running out of stocks fighting Syria, Egypt and their Arab allies, the US launched “Operation Nickel Grass”, the biggest military airlift in history. The US Air Force flew almost 1,000 tonnes of weapons and ammunition to Israel per day, for a total of more than 22,000 tonnes. That is being repeated now, albeit on a smaller scale. For the past two weeks, US C-17 transports have been landing regularly at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and at Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert. Most aircraft fly in from the Ramstein airbase in Germany, where the US has warehouses full of “prepositioned stock” — equipment set aside for military emergencies. There is little doubt that heavier and less urgent supplies are being shipped to Israel by sea. Among them will surely be replenishment rockets for the tracked version of the high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), the M270 multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) that saw heavy use in Gaza. In October, the US released its own missiles for the Iron Dome air defence system to Israel. Israel’s response to initial heavy Hamas rocket attacks and attacks from Hezbollah and the Houthis had depleted Israel’s stocks to such an alarming level that it requested all of the Tamir interceptor missiles that the US had bought and kept in Israel until deployment. The Israeli forces would also welcome a break in fighting to evaluate its tactics so far in light of its performance against Hamas tunnels. As many analysts have warned — me included — despite dogs, robots, ground-penetrating radars, and other technology, the tunnels can be destroyed only once soldiers get inside. That is a bloody task, as was proven last week when four commandos were killed by an improvised explosive device after opening a tunnel cover. A few days ago, an unidentified Israeli officer briefing reporters embedded with the Israeli forces admitted, “We don’t want to go down there. We know that they left us a lot of side bombs.” London-based weekly The Jewish Chronicle reported on November 16 that standing orders were clear: “No

The deal is expected to see the group exchange captives for Palestinian prisoners with Israel for a temporary ceasefire. Published On 21 Nov 202321 Nov 2023 Hamas officials are “approaching a truce agreement” with Israel after weeks of the war in the Gaza Strip, according to Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian group that rules the besieged enclave. The group delivered its response to Qatari mediators in the ongoing talks, Haniyeh said in a statement to Reuters news agency on Tuesday morning. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Can the UN Security Council stop Israel’s war on Gaza? list 2 of 4 UN Security Council adopts resolution for ‘humanitarian pauses’ in Gaza list 3 of 4 Can Biden pressure Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza? list 4 of 4 Protesters demanding Gaza ceasefire shut down US bridge end of list The statement gave no more details, but a Hamas official told Al Jazeera that negotiations were centred on how long the ceasefire would last, arrangements for delivery of aid into Gaza and the exchange of Israeli captives held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Both sides will free women and children and details will be announced by Qatar, which is mediating in the negotiations, said Ezzat el-Reshiq. The agreement will include a ceasefire, arrangements for aid trucks to supply all areas in Gaza, and transfer of the injured to other countries for treatment, according to el-Reshiq. He said the talks between the warring sides have been going on for weeks, adding that the Israeli side was stalling the agreement. The Hamas official said the deal was agreed upon by all the brigades in Gaza through phone calls, “as we are always united whether it is on the battlefield or in making political decisions”. Separately, in remarks quoted by Israel’s Walla news website, Hamas senior official Yahya Sinwar said the agreement would prohibit the activity of Israeli aircraft in Gaza during the truce. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.605.0_en.html#goog_1838002934Play Video Video Duration 28 minutes 00 seconds28:00Can the US President pressure Israel to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza? UN resolution Talk of an imminent deal on captives has been circulating for days as Qatari mediators sought the agreement for Hamas and Israel to exchange captives for prisoners in return for a temporary ceasefire that would boost emergency aid shipments to Gaza civilians. Last week, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip” to allow for aid delivery and medical evacuations after four failed attempts to respond to the Israel-Hamas war. The resolution, introduced by Malta on Wednesday, also called for “corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days” to safeguard civilians, particularly children, Ambassador Vanessa Frazier told the Council. The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, said on Monday that the world was witnessing an “unparalleled and unprecedented” level of civilian death in Gaza compared with any other conflict since he became the international organisation’s secretary-general in 2017. “What is clear is that we have had in a few weeks thousands of children killed, so this is what matters,” Guterres said in New York while presenting a new UN environmental report. At least 13,000 Palestinians – about 5,600 of them children and 3,500 women – have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its air and ground assault on Gaza after the October 7 attacks by Hamas targeting Israel, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Hamas and allied groups took about 240 captives during their incursion into southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.605.0_en.html#goog_534672148Play Video Video Duration 02 minutes 00 seconds02:00’Unparalleled & unprecedented’: UN Secretary General condemns civilian deaths