Israel July 2025-

Israel, Palestine, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon

February 2026
The Battle to Oust Bibi: Israel’s 2026 Elections
As the Israeli Knesset elections draw near, with all 120 seats up for grabs, the fight for Israel’s future is about to begin. Israel’s right-wing government, led by long-standing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for all but 18 months of the last 17 years has been the country’s Prime Minister, has become the most unpopular Netanyahu-led government in Israel’s history.
Held against the backdrop of the traumatic events of the 7th October 2023 and the subsequent conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and with Iran, this election will be a crucial factor in determining Israel’s future, the success of the fragile ceasefire in Gaza and the prospect for a two-state solution to get back on track.
Israel’s proportional representation electoral system leads to numerous parties contesting elections, with outcomes hinged on nationwide party performances and the ensuing coalition negotiations that follow.
With growing anger towards Netanyahu’s government, Israel’s political spectrum has seen a resurgence of centrist and centre-left parties, with Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid, Yair Golan’s centre-left Democrats, and Naftali Bennett’s big-tent Bennett 2026 leading the charge for change
Parties must clear a threshold of 3.25 percent of the national vote in order to win seats in the
Knesset. If a party doesn’t clear that bar, its votes are effectively wasted.
• The highly proportional system makes it near-impossible for any party to win a majority: since its first general election in 1949, Israel has always been ruled by coalition governments. The electoral system also makes it easier for new parties to suddenly emerge, rapidly shifting the political landscape

15-16 July
Can Netanyahu survive again?
(GZERO Media) It’s official: on Sunday, Israel’s parliament affirmed that the country will hold a national election on Oct. 27.
The big question in this election yet again is whether Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, can win once more.
The conflicts over the last few years have put a major dent in Netanyahu’s political standing. … The failure to destroy and disarm the militant group Hamas after the ensuing war, even as Israeli strikes killed an estimated 67,000 Gazans, didn’t help either. …
Meanwhile, Israel’s campaigns against Iran and the militant group Hezbollah haven’t gone to plan. The United States has essentially forced Israel to cease fighting with Iran before it achieved any of its goals – regime change, ending Tehran’s nuclear program, and destroying its ballistic missiles. As for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group may be weakened, but it has shown some staying power amid the latest flare-up this summer.
Domestic issues have also hurt Netanyahu. He has continued to allow military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews, even as public support for their conscription has surged. His efforts to weaken the judicial branch prompted widespread protests in Israel even before the Oct. 7 attacks. Plus, the PM continues to face long-running corruption charges that have tarnished his personal reputation and could, should he lose the election, land him in jail.
…  Former Israel Defense Forces chief Gadi Eisenkot has sprung to the fore as the leading contender to replace him. … Eisenkot’s domestic platform differs from Netanyahu’s in significant ways. He supports military service for all Israelis, opposes the judicial reforms that Bibi desired, and even backs term limits for PMs. However, on foreign policy, the differences are much narrower. Like Netanyahu, he opposes a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wants Israel to remain a regional power. …
A new Israeli PM could offer a chance to reset ties with Washington. After all, Netanyahu himself has recently become a source of criticism among leaders in both US parties.
Don’t count him out. “ …he is the best player in public manipulation and election preparation. His combination of experience and skill is second to none in today’s country.”

Netanyahu’s Main Challenger is Ex-General Who Lost Son in Gaza War
Takeaways by Bloomberg AI
Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of Israel’s armed forces, has emerged as the main challenger to Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections.
Polls indicate that Eisenkot’s new party Yashar will get slightly more seats than Netanyahu’s Likud in the Oct. 27 vote, which would give him the right to try and form a coalition government.
Eisenkot is seen as a stark contrast to Netanyahu in style, and his background and policies have given him a degree of support among Israelis, but he will face tough challenges in forming a stable new coalition.

13 July
In Israel’s prisons, torture and death have become a norm that it barely tries to hide
Nesrine Malik
The suffering of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is no isolated case. The abuse of Palestinian detainees is happening in plain sight, yet nothing changes

27 May
Ian Bremmer: Why Trump’s Iran deal could finally end Netanyahu
… While domestic support for the multi-front war remains strong, with Israelis across the political spectrum seeing Tehran and its proxies as existential threats to the Jewish state, most have tired of Netanyahu’s corruption scandals, his attacks on Israel’s democratic institutions, and his subservience to ultra-Orthodox and settler interests. A decisive victory against Iran might have overridden all that and kept “Mr. Security” in power. But as Yair Lapid, one of Netanyahu’s chief rivals, put it: “Three years after Oct. 7, Hamas rules Gaza, Hezbollah rules Lebanon, and instead of an 86-year-old Khamenei ruling Iran, a 56-year-old Khamenei rules Iran.”
A Trump-Tehran deal that leaves the regime not just intact but geopolitically stronger than before would undercut Netanyahu’s pitch to voters that he, and only he, could defeat the Iranian threat, manage Trump, and keep Israel safe. Strip away that shield, and all that’s left are the liabilities. Not least among them: his multiple criminal probes. And with Israeli President Isaac Herzog so far declining to pardon him despite pressure from President Trump, the corruption trials will stay a live campaign issue and raise the stakes of defeat beyond the merely political.

21 May
Netanyahu’s coalition alliances with religious parties put his reelection at risk
(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained in power for most of the past 17 years due in part to a tight alliance with ultra-Orthodox religious parties.
But that alliance is tearing apart his governing coalition and proving to be another major liability for the long-serving Israeli leader as the country heads to elections later this year. The Oct. 7, 2023, attack — and the inconclusive wars that have followed — are also weighing on him.
After 2 1/2 years of active fighting in multiple countries, much of it involving reservists, many Israelis are tired of a longstanding system that has allowed ultra-Orthodox men to skip military service. That anger has spread to Netanyahu’s own base.
… Two major ultra-Orthodox parties deserted Netanyahu earlier this month after he told them he did not expect to be able to pass the exemptions bill. That left his coalition without a parliamentary majority, and is one of the main reasons for the bill to dissolve the Knesset. …

14 May
Israeli nationalists chant ‘death to Arabs’ in violent Jerusalem Day march
Far-right Jewish marchers call for Palestinian villages to ‘burn’ as they storm through Muslim quarter of Old City
(The Guardian) Israeli nationalists chanted “death to the Arabs”, “may your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard” in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation.
The annual assertion of Jewish control over Palestinian East Jerusalem has grown more extreme in recent years, and Thursday’s event culminated with the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest Islamic site in the city.
Marchers were bused in from around Israel and from settlements in the occupied West Bank in a vast operation funded by the Jerusalem municipality and government ministries. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also took part in Thursday’s march.

13 May
Israel’s ruling coalition proposes early elections amid ultra-Orthodox anger at Netanyahu
Prime minister under pressure over failure to grant military service exemptions as multi-party government looks at risk of collapse
Leaders of all six ruling groups in the Knesset signed draft legislation for early elections, which would bring about collapse of Israel’s coalition government led by Netanyahu
(The Guardian) The move, initiated by Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, came as Netanyahu appeared to be facing a possible collapse of his fractious coalition.
If the bill is approved it would automatically trigger elections to be held after 90 days.It was signed by leaders of the six parliamentary groups in the governing coalition.
According to Israeli media reports, the bill could be put to a vote on 20 May. Its passage is widely seen as a foregone conclusion.
Elections could therefore be held from the third week of August, about two months before the original scheduled end of the legislative term on 27

7 May
Bibi on the ropes
By Felicia Schwartz
(Politico Forecast) The electoral math that has kept him in power through five elections in four years is up in the air. His rivals may have finally gotten their act together. Some polls show a plausible path to a Knesset majority.
For the first time in years, the anti-Bibi camp stands a chance of defeating longstanding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The current snapshot isn’t great for Netanyahu — recent polls show his camp losing some ground, while those running in opposition to him are gaining. But while his Likud party doesn’t have a clear path to a coalition, neither do his opponents ahead of elections that must take place by late October.
And yet, no one is ready to count Bibi out as he once again finds himself battling for his political life. The opposition bloc led by Bennett would likely need to pull in Arab parties, those representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, in order to command a majority. He has done that in the past, but has vowed not to in the upcoming contest. If the elections deadlock, as they did from 2019 to 2021, Netanyahu will remain in power as a caretaker prime minister.
The anti-Bibi camp has long struggled to come up with a prime minister or to solve the electoral math that catapults them ahead of Netanyahu. The 2019-2022 cycle of five elections produced only one non-Netanyahu government, headed by Bennett and Lapid, that barely lasted a year. Netanyahu has often been written off, only to find a way to pull off yet another astonishing feat of survival.
But this time, the obstacles are different — and perhaps more daunting. Elections have often been referendums on his hawkish security posture, with Netanyahu positioning himself as the only person who can protect Israel’s security and promote the country on the world stage. But the post-Oct. 7 questions about security competence, Netanyahu’s continued support for ultra-Orthodox men not to serve in the military and his weakening of state institutions are increasingly replacing traditional ideological divides.

26-27 April
Israeli opposition joins forces again in effort to topple Netanyahu
Launching joint slate, Bennett and Lapid promise ‘the era of division is over’
‘We are uniting today to win the elections and to establish a Zionist government,’ says Lapid. ‘To win the elections, the entire Israeli center must stand behind Naftali Bennett’
(GZERO) Aiming to finally end the career of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid – both former PMs – announced Sunday they’re once again joining their respective right-wing and centrist parties together ahead of parliamentary elections later this year. They did so back in 2021, with mixed results: they won the election that year, but their coalition, which included the Islamist party Ra’am, fell apart 18 months later. When announcing the effort, Bennett – who will lead the coalition – spoke of the need for unity while citing the recent defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s long-time leader, as a cause for hope. While frustrations are growing in Israel over Benjamin Netanyahu’s governance, amid wars with Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, polls still suggest that this Bennett-Lapid coalition doesn’t have enough support to win a majority in the Knesset.
With goals of Iran war unfulfilled, Netanyahu’s government faces unhappy public as elections loom
(AP) Iran’s government is still in power. Hezbollah and Hamas haven’t been defeated. U.S. President Donald Trump’s interests may be diverging from Israel’s.
Wars with Iran and its proxies haven’t gone according to plan for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that could mean trouble for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister in elections scheduled for later this year. Many Israelis are dissatisfied with the Netanyahu government’s wartime leadership, according to a recent poll.
At the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran in late February, Netanyahu said the goal was to degrade the Islamic Republic’s military, eradicate its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and create the conditions for its overthrow. While Iran’s military has been badly damaged, it is still a threat to neighbors and ships in the Strait of Hormuz — and Netanyahu’s other goals remained unfulfilled when a ceasefire was announced earlier this month.
Israel’s latest war with Hezbollah in Lebanon has also been cut short. Netanyahu said he agreed to a truce at the request of Trump but that Israel was “not finished yet” with the Iran-backed militant group; Israeli forces are still occupying a 10-kilometer- (6-mile-) deep swath of southern Lebanon.

12 April
Ceasefire means Netanyahu can’t keep promises, many Israelis say as elections loom
Declaring victory now, for the second time in 10 months, makes it just a matter of time until a new round of fighting begins, some voters say, as the opposition sees an opening.
(WaPo) After 40 days and almost 40 nights of war, many Israelis breathed a sigh of relief when President Donald Trump declared an 11th-hour, two-week truce with Iran — but others are saying not so fast.
Among high-ranking officials and civilians alike, there is a widespread sense that while a sudden end to retaliatory attacks is welcome, it’s still too early for a ceasefire deal. Despite a series of assassinations of high-level Iranians, they say, the war so far has not done sufficient damage to Israel’s mortal enemy.
Declaring victory over Iran now — for the second time in 10 months — would mean it’s just a matter of time until the next round of fighting begins.
The Israeli political opposition, in particular, has been vociferous in criticizing the conduct of the war and, now, the temporary ceasefire, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently had no say. Opposition politicians are asking what Israel has gained in this war that Netanyahu had sought for so long.
On Sunday morning in Islamabad, after more than 20 hours of negotiations, Vice President JD Vance said the United States and Iran failed to reach an accord to end the war, but it was unclear what would happen next. Pakistan, which mediated the talks, does not recognize Israel, and Israeli officials did not attend the negotiations.

10 April
Netanyahu-ism has achieved nothing for Israelis – and come at a monstrously high price
Jonathan Freedland
It is the voting public in Israel that will settle their PM’s fate later this year. But all they have heard are promises of ‘total victory’ that prove to be hollow
(The Guardian concluding paragraphs) … Netanyahu-ism has gained nothing, and it has come at a monstrously high price. Most obviously, in the lives of all those killed, whether in Rafah or the Bekaa valley or Israel itself. But it has also inflicted perhaps irreparable damage on Israel’s standing in the world. Every day Netanyahu remains in post, he makes his country more of a pariah. Witness last week’s grotesque scenes in the Knesset, as his government passed a racist law that will, in effect, impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of terrorist murderers, but not Jews. The bill was driven by the far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but Netanyahu went out of his way to turn up and vote for it.
Few outside Israel will care that Israelis spent every night of the past six, sleepless weeks in bomb shelters, while the days saw the schools closed and the country in a state of Covid-style semi-lockdown – but Israeli voters will. If Netanyahu loses this year’s election, polls suggest he will be replaced by a figure of the right arguing, in essence, that Netanyahu’s approach was the correct one, it just wasn’t executed properly. But there is a broader and deeper case to be made, one that says that Netanyahu has pursued the wrong strategy for decades; that, because security will never come by force alone, ultimately Israel will have to reach an accommodation with its neighbours, the Palestinians above all. Maybe, after Netanyahu’s serial failures have been so vividly exposed, Israelis will, at last, be ready to hear it.

3 April
‘I don’t know how we’ll emerge from this’: How much more can Israelis take?
Years of war have fundamentally changed Israel’s politics, economy and society, analysts say.
(Al Jazeera) Now, as Israel engages in what many within the country have been repeatedly told is an “existential battle” with regional nemesis Iran, what the future might hold for Israel remains to be seen. The conflict’s ultimate end will likely be determined by lawmakers in Washington rather than planners in Israel.
Even before its war on Iran, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza had taken its toll on the country’s standing and financing. According to the Bank of Israel’s own numbers, the nation’s wars on Gaza, the Houthis, Lebanon and Iran since October 2023 have already cost it 352 billion shekels ($112bn), equating roughly to an average cost of 300 million shekels ($96m) per day.
At the International Court of Justice, Israel faces what jurists have already ruled are credible accusations of genocide, while both its prime minister and former minister of defence are the subject of arrest warrants for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court in November 2024. Now, economically, the country is bracing for what could be the catastrophic financial consequences of its war on Iran.
… Politics on the edge
The backdrop to all this is a politics which few would recognise from that which ratified the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. Or that which in the 1980s expelled the ultranationalist Meir Kahane, the proponent of extremist beliefs that hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and many of his Jewish Power party’s current members implicitly support.
Indeed, figures such as Ben-Gvir and ultra-Orthodox Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – a settler whose movement believes it is biblically entitled to the land of the West Bank – now play central roles in government with both cross-party and public support.

25 February
Israel kills more journalists than any nation on record: Media watchdog
Israel is responsible for 84 of 129 journalist killings in 2025 tracked by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Israel killed at least 84 media workers and journalists in 2025 – far more than any other country in what was the deadliest year on record for the news media.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released the findings on Wednesday in its annual report and pointed to “a persistent culture of impunity for attacks on the press” by Israel’s military.

2025

23 November
Israelis are moving abroad in record numbers due to fear and discontent
Tens of thousands of Israelis have left over the past two years, and many are young and well-educated, raising concerns over economic and social consequences.
(WaPo) Tens of thousands of Israelis have left the country over the past two years, with numbers spiking during the summer of 2023 — amid tumultuous protests against the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government and even before the Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli offensive in Gaza. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, more than 80,000 of the country’s 10 million citizens had newly moved abroad in 2024 and similar numbers are expected this year.
Israeli sociologists and demographers say that most of those in this growing cadre of émigrés are well educated, high-earning, secular, left-leaning and deeply critical of the direction leaders have been taking the country. Many are employees in start-up companies, doctors and students pursuing advanced degrees. Young couples and young families are highly represented.
These departures could have momentous economic, social and political effects for decades to come, Israel experts say.
“There are other brain drains in the world, but there is a uniqueness in light of the Israeli demographics,” said Itai Ater, an economics professor at Tel Aviv University. He said, for instance, that workers in Israel’s cutting-edge technology sector, who constitute only 11 percent of the labor force but pay a third of the country’s taxes, are strongly represented among the émigrés.

22 October
Jewish figures across the globe call on UN and world leaders to sanction Israel
In an open letter, Israeli ex-officials, artists and intellectuals say ‘unconscionable’ actions in Gaza amount to genocide
Over 450 signatories, including former Israeli officials, Oscar winners, authors and intellectuals have signed an open letter demanding accountability over Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The letter’s release comes as EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday amid reports they plan to shelve proposals for sanctions over human rights violations.
The signatories urge world leaders to uphold international court of justice (ICJ) and international criminal court rulings, avoid complicity in international law violations by halting arms transfers and imposing targeted sanctions, ensure adequate humanitarian aid to Gaza, and reject false claims of antisemitism against those advocating for peace and justice.
World Court says Israel must ensure basic needs in Gaza are met

13 October
A Divided Israel Unites in Joy as Hostages Come Home
With the release from Gaza of the last surviving captives, many Israelis said it was time for the country to heal after years of polarizing war.
(NYT) A majority of Israelis had long wanted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prioritize their release with a deal to end the war, polls showed. But Mr. Netanyahu accused protesters of “hardening Hamas’s stance” while critics of the prime minister accused him, in turn, of prolonging the war to appease his far-right political allies on whose support he relies to stay in power.
Now, many Israelis said, with an open-ended cease-fire in place and all the living hostages back home, it was time for the country to heal.
“This is a momentous day, a day of great joy,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an address in the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament, on Monday alongside President Trump.

7-8 October
How Oct. 7 has transformed Israel, Palestine, and the world
The Oct. 7, 2023 attacks fundamentally transformed Israel, Palestine, and the world in ways that will persist for years — regardless of whether Donald Trump’s current peace negotiations succeed. Here’s what has changed and what lies ahead.

After two years, Israel’s Gaza war has reshaped the Middle East
Israel’s hard power preeminence in the Middle East seems paramount. But the country’s leaders — and the entire region — still face an array of political challenges.
(WaPo) A region home to many tragic clichés is at a crossroads and poised on a knife edge. Two years after the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023 — when militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 255 hostages — the Israeli campaign that ensued, devastating the Gaza Strip, smolders on. There’s a glimmer of hope that ongoing talks in Egypt, backed by President Donald Trump, may finally yield a ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages in Hamas captivity.
Still, Israeli bombardments in Gaza continued Tuesday, adding to the toll of Palestinian civilian casualties, which has surpassed more than 67,000 people killed, according to local health authorities. The territory has been flattened, with most of its civilian infrastructure destroyed, as well as the bulk of its housing stock, schools and medical and sanitation facilities. On Tuesday, Israelis mourned the Oct. 7 attack with solemn memorials. In Gaza, the trauma of what’s followed is still hard to gauge, with numerous bodies buried under the rubble and the looming prospect that at least some of the territory’s immiserated Palestinian population may be compelled to leave their homeland.
The past two years of war reached far across the Middle East. Israel decimated the once-powerful Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah and pummeled Iran-linked targets in neighboring Syria; by the end of last year, the long-ruling Assad regime in Damascus was so weakened that it collapsed in the face of a rebel offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called the bluff of his regional nemesis in Tehran, repeatedly hitting targets on Iranian soil with clandestine sabotage, assassination plots and missile strikes. He even pulled the United States into a brief shooting war with Iran this summer.
But Israel’s tactical triumphs over the past two years have not resulted in clear strategic success. Its hard power preeminence in the Middle East, buttressed by U.S. military aid and political support, may seem paramount, but the country’s leaders face an array of political challenges, including the unresolved question of reconciliation with millions of Palestinians living under de facto Israeli occupation. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is unpopular at home, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and increasingly unwelcome even in the United States, where popular opinion is slowly turning against Israel.
A regional hegemon, globally isolated
(AP) Israel has inflicted major damage on Iran and its allies, emerging as the unquestionably dominant military power in the Middle East, with full control over most of Gaza and parts of Lebanon and Syria.
It showed off powerful military and intelligence capabilities with an attack on Hezbollah using exploding pagers and long-range strikes that took out senior militants, Iranian generals and nuclear scientists.
But its tactical victories have come at an enormous cost.
Israel is more isolated internationally than it has been in decades, with experts, scholars and major rights groups accusing it of genocide, charges it vehemently denies. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, accusing them of using starvation as a method of warfare, allegations they deny. Normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries appears increasingly remote.
The failure to return the hostages, on top of long-standing corruption allegations against Netanyahu and his efforts to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, have left the country furiously divided, with weekly mass protests and discontent mounting as Israel wages another major offensive in Gaza.

26 September
Facing global isolation at UN, a defiant Netanyahu says Israel ‘must finish the job’ against Hamas
(AP) — Surrounded by critics and protesters at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told fellow world leaders on Friday that his nation “must finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza, giving a defiant speech despite growing international isolation over his refusal to end the devastating war. “Western leaders may have buckled under the pressure,” he said. “And I guarantee you one thing: Israel won’t.”
Netanyahu’s speech, aimed as much at his increasingly divided domestic audience as the global one, began after dozens of delegates from multiple nations walked out of the U.N. General Assembly hall en masse Friday morning as he began.
Responding to countries’ recent decisions to recognize Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu said: “Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere.”

1 September
Israel committing genocide in Gaza, scholars group says
Leading genocide scholars formally declare that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the UN’s definition of genocide.
(Al Jazeera) The world’s top genocide scholars have formally declared that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, marking a landmark intervention from leading experts in the field of international law.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), a 500-member body of academics founded in 1994, passed a resolution on Monday, stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfil the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
17 June
History says the genocide in Gaza will be recognised – eventually
The world never sees crimes against humanity in the moment. Justice, if it comes, is always delayed.

25-28 August
Benjamin Netanyahu is turning Israel into a pariah state. He doesn’t care
Gary Mason, National affairs columnist
(Globe & Mail) With so much evil in the world, it’s quite a feat to be considered the worst of the worst. And yet, I think we are there with the Israeli government, which has in recent months taken over the title from Russia.
And while we consider the bombing Israel is conducting against the people of Gaza, the famine it has incited and the sheer savagery of the war being overseen by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is difficult to not be equally outraged by the pathetic, feeble response of the global community.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There isn’t a foreign ministry around that hasn’t produced a statement (or several) condemning the latest atrocity committed by the Israel Defense Forces. And the demands that Israel halt what it is doing immediately flow endlessly from the tepid pens of world leaders.
And yet the one person who could stop the conflict tomorrow if he wanted to – U.S. President Donald Trump – has done little more than talk about a ceasefire. Rather, he recently called Mr. Netanyahu a “war hero.” And, of course, the U.S. continues to send Israel the weapons it is using in what some renowned experts have characterized as a “genocide” of Palestinians.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many children lose their lives. Clearly, almost 20,000 isn’t enough. I suppose if the Israeli Prime Minister has his way, there won’t be any children left in Gaza. Because there won’t be any Palestinians, period. …
This week, we saw Israeli forces bomb a hospital, killing 20 people including five journalists. It’s widely been speculated that it was a deliberate “double strike.” This is when one bombs a building, waits for first-aid workers and journalists to arrive to help the wounded and chronicle the devastation, and then bombs the same spot again, killing even more.
That’s how some of the more than 240 journalists who have lost their lives covering this war have died. Most of them have been Palestinians, because Israel won’t allow international journalists in to document what it is doing. It would seem to be doing its best to eradicate anyone who is bearing witness to the war crimes many believe are taking place in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s Path Is Leading Israel to Ruin
Eran Yashiv and Daniel Tsiddon
What began as a response to Hamas’s October 7 attacks has devolved into a campaign of mass destruction, famine, and displacement. Unless Israel abandons its plan to conquer Gaza City and restores the flow of humanitarian aid, it risks catastrophic economic fallout, deepening isolation, and national decline.
(Project Syndicate) Italy’s current government is among the most Israel-friendly in the country’s history, which is why Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s recent remarks about the ongoing war in Gaza should set off alarm bells among Israelis, particularly within the government.
n an interview with La Stampa, Crosetto delivered a blunt message to Israel’s leaders. “Fighting terrorists is no longer an excuse,” he said, adding that “We need decisions that will force [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] to stop.” Such measures, he added, should not be directed against Israel itself, but instead serve as a “way to save its people from a government that has lost its reason and its humanity.” Crosetto is right. The war in Gaza has taken a devastating toll not only on Palestinians but also on Israel’s economy, democracy, and global standing. Without an immediate change of course, Netanyahu’s agenda could make Israel an international pariah for decades to come.

25-30 July
Even Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest backer, Donald Trump, doesn’t believe him on claims of ‘no starvation’ in Gaza
(ABC Au)Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming more and more isolated on the world stage, as his rhetoric on the conditions in Gaza becomes more and more fanciful.
While announcing an easing of restrictions on aid deliveries in the strip, following a total humanitarian blockade of Gaza in March and the establishment of private aid distribution in mid-May, the prime minister made a startling claim.
“Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza,” he told a Christian conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.
“What a bold-faced lie.
“There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”
The reason that is startling is because of what is happening on the ground, less than 100 kilometres from Jerusalem.
Israeli public figures call for ‘crippling sanctions’ on Israel over Gaza starvation
Thirty-one high-profile Israelis express shame over ‘brutal campaign’ and demand permanent ceasefire in letter
(The Guardian)) A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has called for “crippling sanctions” to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza.
The 31 signatories of a letter to the Guardian include an Academy award recipient, Yuval Abraham; a former Israeli attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair; Avraham Burg, a former speaker of Israel’s parliament and former head of the Jewish Agency; and a number of recipients of the prestigious Israel prize, Israel’s highest cultural honour.
28 July
What reporting in Gaza shows amid Trump’s break from Netanyahu on starvation
(NPR) New light has emerged between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, with the latter disputing Israel’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza.
But Consider This: Even as global outrage and assistance grows, aid agencies say only a total ceasefire will allow all the necessary aid in to get to those who desperately need it in Gaza.
25 July
Israel’s actions in Gaza put it at risk of becoming a global pariah
Israel’s parliament — the Knesset — this week voted 71-13 in favour of annexing the occupied West Bank.
(ABC Au) It was a symbolic, non-binding vote but one that gives a window into the mindset within Israel that is feeding the humanitarian disaster the world is witnessing in Gaza.
That is a disaster with no end in sight following yet another breakdown in ceasefire talks in Qatar on Thursday night, and despite the escalation in international pressure this week, first in a statement from 28 countries attacking Israel’s approach to allowing aid into the strip and, early on Friday Australian time, French President Emanuel Macron’s announcement that France would recognise a Palestinian state.
The significance of the French president’s intervention lies in the fact that he is the first of the G7 nations to commit to recognise Palestine — a step that many, including Australia, have argued until now needed to await a ceasefire and a clarification that Hamas would not have a role in its governance.
A headshot of Emmanuel Macron with a neutral expression in front of a French and European Union flag.

18 July
Faced with a choice between saving his own skin and the lives of others, Netanyahu always chooses himself
Jonathan Freedland
If Israel’s prime minister accepts a ceasefire deal soon, it will only be because the timing suits him. He, like his country, will face a reckoning
(The Guardian) … If the supposed benefit of the war eludes even Netanyahu’s erstwhile partners in government, its cost is apparent to the entire watching world.
Inside Israel, a war without end means the deaths of Israeli soldiers – and, recall, almost every (non-Haredi) Jewish, Druze and Circassian 18-year-old is a conscript – and another day chained in darkness for the 20 living Israelis still believed to be held hostage by Hamas and its allies in Gaza. Which is why three in four Israelis want this war over, immediately.
Next week will see the end of the current session of the Israeli parliament, with the Knesset then in recess until October. During those three months, it is procedurally harder to bring down an Israeli government. So Netanyahu will soon be less vulnerable to the ultranationalists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have long threatened to leave his coalition should he do a deal that ends the war. Hence the speculation of an imminent move.
Underpinning it is the assumption that until now Netanyahu has preferred the hostages to remain in their dungeons, and Palestinian civilians to keep dying, than to risk his hold on power. In other words, if a deal is done soon, it will be a deal that could have been done sooner – but which was delayed to keep Netanyahu in the prime minister’s seat.

17 July
The Wheels Are Falling Off Netanyahu’s Government
The Israeli leader has been alienating his allies and is spiraling toward early elections.
By Yair Rosenberg
(The Atlantic) Outside of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu appears ascendant. After the Israeli leader inflicted heavy losses on Iran last month, The New York Times dubbed the apparent victory his “political resurrection” and “the culmination of a hard-fought comeback from the lowest point in his long political career.” Inside Israel, however, the reality could not be more different.

As has been the case for more than two years, polls continue to show that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose the next election, were it to be held today. And this week, his government lost two of its parties, effectively leaving it with control of just 50 of the Israeli Parliament’s 120 seats. The result: Netanyahu now sits atop a de facto minority government that is no longer able to legislate, and Israel is careening toward new elections, most likely in early 2026.
The reason for this unraveling is twofold. To maintain his grip on power, despite his personal unpopularity and ongoing corruption trial, Netanyahu has relied upon two constituencies: the ultra-Orthodox religious parties (which hold 18 seats) and the far-right ultranationalist parties (which hold 14 seats). Both of these groups support policies at odds with the views of the Israeli majority, and both are now at odds with Netanyahu.
For more than a decade, the ultra-Orthodox have backed Netanyahu even as many Israelis have turned on him. In exchange, the prime minister has provided generous state subsidies to ultra-Orthodox institutions and protected the community from Israel’s military draft: Whereas most Jewish Israelis serve in the Israel Defense Forces, most young ultra-Orthodox men are instead paid by the government to study religious texts. This arrangement has been profoundly unpopular even among Netanyahu’s voters but was tolerated during peacetime as a necessary concession for continued right-wing governance. …

Not just about the Druze: Israel’s rationale for its attacks on Syria
Israel has framed its attacks as in defence of the Druze – but the country has more self-serving reasons.
By Simon Speakman Cordall
(Al Jazeera) On Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video message to his country’s Druze minority. He implored them not to cross into southwestern Syria to support Syrian Druze militiamen in their fight against local Bedouin and government forces in Suwayda.
And yet, as Netanyahu made the statement, his own forces were bombing the Syrian capital Damascus, hitting the country’s Ministry of Defence, and killing at least three people.
… Sectarian tensions between the Druze and local Bedouins in Suweyda are longstanding. Meanwhile, attempts by the newly formed Syrian government, which took power after the fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, to assert control over the region have been frustrated in part by Israel’s repeated threats against the presence of the Syrian military near its border.
There are roughly 700,000 Druze in Syria. Another 150,000 Druze live in Israel, where, at least before the 2018 law emphasising only Jewish self-determination, many regarded themselves as bound by a “blood covenant” with their Jewish neighbours since 1948 and the founding of Israel at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in the Nakba. While some now feel like “second-class” citizens, the majority are still supportive of the Israeli state, where they serve in the military.
… Since the ousting of al-Assad after a 14-year war, Israel has struck Syria hundreds of times and invaded and occupied about 400 square kilometres (155sq miles) of its territory, excluding the western Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.
Leading analysts within Israel suggest that these latest attacks may not have been entirely motivated by concern for the welfare of the Druze, so much as the personal and political aims of the Israeli government and its embattled prime minister.
… [Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York] sketched out a number of the motivations behind Israel’s recent strikes on Syria, from boosting Netanyahu’s newfound self-image as a wartime leader, to pushing back his corruption trial, to reinforcing the “delusion” that, over the previous 21 months, Israel has somehow managed to reshape the Middle East through military force alone.
“Lastly, he doesn’t want to see a unified Syria with a strong central government controlled by al-Sharaa,” Pinkas said. “He wants a weak central government dealing with areas controlled by the Kurds [in the north] and the Druze and Bedouin in the south.”
The attacks on Syria have the additional effect of sustaining the sense of crisis that has gripped Israeli society and sustained its government through numerous scandals since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war on Gaza.

15 July
Netanyahu under mounting political pressure after party quits
Government vulnerable not in immediate danger of collapse
Coalition members quit over military conscription dispute
Netanyahu still has time to resolve crisis
Gaza ceasefire talks underway in Qatar
(Reuters) – A religious party has quit Israel’s ruling coalition in a dispute over military service, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority in parliament but still enough political support to secure a potential Gaza ceasefire.
Six members of United Torah Judaism (UTJ) handed in resignation letters overnight from posts in parliamentary committees and government ministries, in protest against lawmakers’ failure to guarantee future exemption from military conscription for ultra-Orthodox religious students.

12 July
Netanyahu flies home without a Gaza peace deal but still keeps Trump onside
Andrew Roth
Israeli PM manages to avoid breach with US president through high-profile assurances he is seeking end to war

7-8 July
Israeli defence minister’s Gaza proposal marks escalation from incitement of war crimes to official planning for mass forced displacement
Emma Graham-Harrison
Plans for an internment camp on ruins of Rafah are ‘unviable, impractical and morally depraved’ but should be taken seriously
(The Guardian) Defence minister Israel Katz’s plans for an internment camp on the ruins of Rafah mark an escalation beyond incitement to war crimes, already a mainstay of Israel’s political discourse, to operational planning for mass forced displacement.
Israeli lawmakers including cabinet ministers have repeatedly called for the “cleansing” of Gaza, in the wake of Hamas’s cross-border attacks on 7 October, backing the forced deportation of Palestinians to other countries and new Israeli settlements in the territory.
However, Katz was the first senior cabinet member to lay out, in a briefing on Monday to Israeli media, measures to implement the displacement of Palestinians from most of Gaza.
Israeli plan for forced transfer of Gaza’s population ‘a blueprint for crimes against humanity’
Military ordered to turn ruins of Rafah into ‘humanitarian city’ but experts call the plan an internment camp for all Palestinians in Gaza
Palestinians will have to pass ‘security screening’ into the camp and then will not be allowed to leave, the defence minister told Israeli journalists
Israel’s defence minister has laid out plans to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, in a scheme that legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.
Israel Katz said he has ordered Israel’s military to prepare for establishing a camp, which he called a “humanitarian city”, on the ruins of the city of Rafah, Haaretz newspaper reported.

5 July
The Cost of Victory: Israel Overpowered Its Foes, but Deepened Its Isolation
Michael D. Shear, White House correspondent
It is more secure from threats than at any time since its founding. But the war in Gaza, and attacks on Iran and Lebanon, have undercut Israel’s standing among the world’s democracies.
(NYT) It’s Israel’s Middle East now.
After three-quarters of a century fighting hostile neighbors, the tiny Jewish country, about the size of New Jersey, has all but vanquished its enemies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen and now even Iran itself, the one backing them all.
The exercise of raw power has allowed Israel, for the first time since its creation in 1948, a future mostly free from immediate threats. The risk of a nuclear Iran is diminished, or perhaps gone. Israel has stable, if uneasy, relations with Persian Gulf Arab states. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cemented his partnership with President Trump.
The new reality in Israel, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and former top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, is that places once under constant threat from Lebanon, Syria or Gaza “will be more secure than Manhattan.”
But at what cost?
Mr. Netanyahu’s relentless and unapologetic military response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people and took 250 people hostage has cemented the view of Israel as a pariah, its leadership accused of genocide and war crimes, and disdained by some world leaders. In opinion polls globally, most people have a negative view of Israel.