Aziz Bahou

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

IDF says most of those killed/injured while crowding aid truck in Gaza were from stampede, not IDF fire. But that does not absolve Israel of responsibility for the situation. What did it expect would happen when millions of people are displaced and hungry? https://t.co/RjsY3HmXoV

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

In the same way that the noise Israel made around Al Shifa hospital during its siege diverted attention from the IDF making Gaza City uninhabitable, the threat of an invasion of Rafah appears to be distracting from the starvation and chaos, especially in northern Gaza.

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

What happened today in Gaza is beyond dehumanization. It feels post-human.

[Barnett R. Rubin @BRRubin]

I don't see how the " international human rights regime" or the U.N. Charter survive this. The most powerful actors in the international system have shown with great clarity and precision that there are some people they don't consider human. I don't know what to do with this.

[Aziz Abu Sarah @AzizAbuSarah]

When I worked in Syria, humanitarian aid was sometimes stolen by criminals, ISIS, & the Assad regime. It was a price worth paying to save millions. It’s absurd to advocate against aid to Gaza because Hamas will get some of it. Hundreds of thousands are starving & facing death.

[Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם @yuval_abraham]

A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night. I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home. This happened after Israeli media and German politicians absurdly labeled my Berlinale award speech - where I called for equality between Israelis and Palestinians, a ceasefire and an end to apartheid - as ‘antisemitic’. The appalling misuse of this word by Germans, not only to silence Palestinian critics of Israel, but also to silence Israelis like me who support a ceasefire that will end the killing in Gaza and allow the release of the Israeli hostages - empties the word antisemitism of meaning and thus endangers Jews all over the world. As my grandmother was born in a concentration camp in Libya and most of my grandfather’s family was murdered by Germans in the holocaust, I find it particularly outraging that German politicians in 2024 have the audacity to weaponize this term against me in a way that endangered my family. But above all else, this behavior puts Palestinian co-director Basel Adra’s life in danger, who lives under a military occupation surrounded by violent settlements in Masafer Yatta. He is in far greater danger than I am. I’m happy our award winning film, No Other Land, is sparking an important international debate on this issue - and I hope that millions of people watch it when it comes out this year. Sparking a conversation is why we made it. You can have harsh criticism of what me and Basel said on stage without demonizing us. If this is what you’re doing with your guilt for the holocaust - I don’t want your guilt.

[UNRWA @UNRWA]

There are no words.

[Aziz Abu Sarah @AzizAbuSarah]

Too many people, even “pro peace” people have been silent on violence against Palestinians since Oct 7th. They feel they can’t show empathy towards Palestinians until Israeli hostages are released.

We are facing a moral bankruptcy. There is no justification for violence against civilians. Choosing to be silent is empowering violence, murder and radicalism. Silence is empowering Ben Gvir’s police/militia to protect these thugs.

On Oct 7th, I choose to speak up against Hamas atrocities, and to empathise with Israeli victims. For 25 years, I have been against violence regardless of the perpetrator or the victims’ religion, ethnicity or nationality.

I don’t believe that I have the right to murder innocent people or destroy their property because Israeli soldiers murdered my bother.

But vengeance has been normalizad, accepted and even encouraged. Too
Many reject the notion that all human lives are equal.

[MoTaz @motazazaiza9]

Our smile is a kind of resilience
@WaelDahdouh

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

One of the heroes of our age

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is a must-read interview of Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet (Israel's secret service), one of the rare senior Israeli officials advocating for a 2-state solution:
https://t.co/7mbxjwU0RM

Here is what he says: “We Israelis will have security only when they, Palestinians, will have hope. This is the equation. To say the same in military language: you cannot deter anyone, a person or a group, if he believes he has nothing to lose.”

He says Israelis do not accept the concept of a Palestinian identity: “We see them as people, not ‘a people’, a nation. We cannot accept [the idea of a Palestinian people] because if we do, it creates a huge obstacle in the concept of the state of Israel.” But to him this mindset and the resulting occupation only brings violence: "we shall suffer violence because of the occupation. Occupation will not bring us security, it brought us violence and death."

He believes Israel should release Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian who has been jailed since 2002, serving a life sentence for murder after leading the second intifada: “Look into the Palestinian polls. He is the only leader who can lead Palestinians to a state alongside Israel. First of all because he believes in the concept of two states, and secondly because he won his legitimacy by sitting in our jails.”

He says support for Barghouti reflects the fact that current Palestinian backing for Hamas is rooted not in enthusiasm for their ideology per se, but the sense they are the only faction fighting effectively for a Palestinian state. Adding that the non-violence embraced in recent years by the rival Fatah faction (the "Palestinian authority" leading the West Bank) has been discredited by their failure to achieve a Palestinian state, which he characterizes as dangerous to both Israelis and Palestinians.

He says the alternative - led of course by Benjamin Netanyahu and supported by the majority of the Israeli public - is "hatred": “Every time when I say hatred is not a plan, it is not a policy, people are very upset”. He says there's no military solution here and that the fighting actually makes things worse: "You cannot destroy ideology by the use of military power. Sometimes it will be rooted deeper if you try. This is exactly what we see today. Today, 75% of Palestinians support Hamas. Before the war, it was less than 50%."

To me, he's one of the rare sane voices in Israel among (former) senior officials. At the ICJ the Israelis try to argue that the genocidal types are fringe elements of Israeli politics but I'm afraid that advocates for peace like Ayalon are the actual fringe 😓

[B.M. @ireallyhateyou]

1/16 🧵
Yes, Abby, it is the Apartheid, you just can't see it.
Unlike the 2nd part of this "brilliant" Hasbara skit, which was filmed on the campus of Tel Aviv University, built on the ruins of Palestinian village Sheikh Muwanis, uprooted in 1948, the 1st part takes us to Jaffa.

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

2023 broke a bunch of records as far as Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, even well before the October 7 attack. 🧵

[Hammam Farah @HumHum83]

This morning Israeli snipers shot and killed my two family friends in an attack on the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza.

Nahida (Um Emad Anton) and Samar, mother and daughter, were walking to the Sisters’ Convent to use the only bathroom.

One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety. Their bodies remain strewn across the church courtyard.

The water tanks and solar panels were also struck. We don’t know if they have enough water to survive.

The Christian community in Gaza is on the verge of extinction.

There are about 800 of us left, some sheltering in the Catholic church, some in the Orthodox church, and a few still in their homes in Gaza City.

There are approximately 530 Christians inside the Holy Family, 60 per cent are women and children.

My family has been sheltered there since St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church was bombed and my cousin was murdered.

This is a targeted death campaign during the Christmas season on the world’s oldest Christian community.

Earlier this morning, an Israeli tank fired on the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa. The convent housed ~54 people with disabilities. The generator was destroyed, taking out electricity. Then two more shells were fired completely destroying the convent. Many of these people are now without the respirators they need to survive.

The Red Cross has submitted a request to the Pope for urgent intervention.

[Aziz Abu Sarah @AzizAbuSarah]

Yesterday the Israeli army killed 3 unarmed hostages who raised a white flag. Today they bombed a church building & shot at those escaping. They killed a mother & a daughter. A pattern?
I read the patriarchate statement & I wonder about the future of the Christians in Gaza

[Aziz Abu Sarah @AzizAbuSarah]

Hamas actions on October 7th were abhorrent, wrong, & a crime. Likewise, the Israeli army actions are abhorrent, wrong, & a crime. The killing of civilians is wrong regardless of who does it & why. Civilians are innocent victims regardless of their color, religion or ethnicity.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

An Israeli strike in southern Gaza has killed Al Jazeera journalist and cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and injured Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh.

Al Jazeera deems this incident a deliberate attempt to target its correspondents and their families in the besieged Gaza Strip.

[Mouin Rabbani @MouinRabbani]

THREAD: On Monday Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, stated that Hamas’s military force, the Martyr Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades as well as the Jerusalem Battalions of Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were on the verge of collapse.