The Holocaust “It wasn’t a Dream” of Shnaider: A Memorino with a Wonderful Mother and Grandmother
They were both waiting for news that Israel’s government was negotiating with Hamas for the release of loved ones, despite their differing views on what Israel should do. The radio version of this story was edited by Adam Bearne and Jan Johnson and produced by David West. The digital version was edited by Treye Green.
“She would drive sick Palestinians from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. So apart from being a wonderful mother and grandmother, that was her essence,” he added.
“Since she retired, she was very much involved in an organization called Women Wage Peace. Since 2015, she also volunteered with an organization called The Road to Recovery,” noted Zeigen.
“If she’s being held there, I think it’s a situation that has to be resolved,” he said. “And I trust that the militant organizations in Gaza won’t hurt her. Because of her status as an elderly woman and their religious ethics.”
Amidst the raw pain he was feeling, Shnaider didn’t have much room to think about similarly innocent people in Gaza being caught up in Israel’s bombing campaign in response.
It took me two days to wake up. To understand that it’s not a dream. It’s not a nightmare. Shnider told Morning Edition that it was something that really happened.
Israel reshuffled the deck: the first intifada of the Gaza Strip and its role in negotiating with the West Bank
He had been searching for any pictures from the village and came across the video of Bibes and her two children.
When he heard that Hamas fighters had crossed into Israel from Gaza, he tried to reach Bibes and her husband, Yarden Bibes, who live near the border in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Telhami said Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the U.S. and European countries, saw the “perfect political opportunity for them, in a horrific way, to reshuffle the deck” and to also neutralize the influence of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, led by Mahmoud Abbas.
The group was founded in the early part of the first intifada, after widespread protests against Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 1997. The EU and some other countries consider it a terrorist organization.
The group is responsible for many suicide bombings and attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers.
Hamas’ leaders are Yehia Sinwar, who is from Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in exile. They realigned the group’s leadership with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Since then, many of the group’s leaders relocated to Beirut.
In recent years, Israel has made peace deals with Arab countries without having to make concessions in its conflict with the Palestinians. The U.S. has recently been trying to broker a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a bitter rival of Hamas’ Iranian backers.
Israel and the Resistance Camp: The Hezbollah-Hamas Connection for the Formation of a Muslim-run Land in the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
Its leaders say hundreds of its 40,000 fighters took part in the assault. Israel says the group has over 30,000 fighters and a wide range of rockets that can reach a distance of about 200 miles.
Iran has been ruled by Shia fundamentalists since the 1979 revolution. The creation of Hezbollah was to help export the Iranian revolution and project Iranian power in the region, said Northeastern University associate professor Max Abrahms.
Iran’s link to Hamas and Hezbollah increases the likelihood that it will be attacked by Israel, according to Abrahms.
He doesn’t believe the Secretary-General of Hezbollah would give his approval to a major attack against Israel. “Whereas I don’t know that Hamas waits for Iranian authorization … although this one might have been different,” he said, referencing the surprise attack from Gaza on Saturday morning.
Israeli intelligence analysts call the relationship among Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran “the resistance camp.” Neumann said that they shared a goal of creating a Muslim-run land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Neumann is a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Hezbollah has a far larger fighting force and is more well-equipped than Hamas.
“Since 2021, Iran and [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah have understood that Hamas is a better player than they thought. Hamas is needed to weaken Israel.
They realized this, Neumann said Monday, after Hamas sought to unify disparate groups of Palestinians amid clashes with Israel in 2021, among them Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, and Arab Israelis, which constitute about 20% of Israel’s population.
The Israeli military says more than 900 Israelis were killed by Hamas attackers and rocket fire, in what it has called “the worst day in Israeli history.”
IRNA, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad: “Fighting with Israel signals coordination between Israel and Hezbollah”
Raisi also held phone calls with leaders from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad after the attacks against Israel began, Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA said Sunday.
“We know that there were meetings in Syria and in Lebanon, if I remember correctly, with the other leaders of the terror armies that surround Israel,” he said. People for Hamas didn’t reply to requests for comment.
The response by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon is not opportunist, according to the director of the Middle East Institute at the University of London.
The fighting around the northern Israeli border is at a much smaller scale than in southern Israel near Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave to Israel’s southwest. Many were worried of a more widespread violence in the region after the double-pronged attacks.
Monday’s fighting follows rocket and drone attacks in the region on Sunday. Both Hezbollah and Israel fired across the border, leading the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon to urge “everyone to exercise restraint … to de-escalate a fast deterioration of the security situation.”
The Israeli military said Monday it killed several fighters crossing the border from Lebanon. The Lebanese militant and political organization Hezbollah said one of its fighters was killed in Israel’s retaliation. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed that it had hurt seven Israeli soldiers.
The attacks on northern Israel intensified this week as militant groups in southern Lebanon did the same.
Source: Fighting with Israel signals coordination between Hamas and Hezbollah, analysts say
PHILIPS IN THE GAZARY SPACE: Israel Kissed the Hands of the Organizers Of The Hamas Attack
Iran’s supreme leader denied the country was involved in the Hamas attack on Israel. But, in televised comments Tuesday, he said: “We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime.”
Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials have accused Iran of providing training, money and other assistance to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, who carried out an unprecedented, multifront assault on Israel on Saturday.
Israel carried out heavy bombardments across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, as its military repeatedly hit the enclave following last weekend’s deadly incursion by Hamas militants in Israel.
The U.S. World Food Program supports the creation of emergency humanitarian corridors.
The State Department announced that the first shipment of weapons from the United States arrived in Israel.
President Joe Biden promised to make sure Israel has what it needs in the wake of the attack by Hamas on the Jewish state.
At least 14 Americans have died in Israel and more than 20 are missing, said Biden. In an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there are some Americans among dozens of those held hostage by Hamas but called it “a very small number of Americans that we know of.”
“There’s also a larger number of Americans that are just unaccounted for. Now, some of them could turn up to be in the hostage pool. We just don’t know. Kirby said that they are trying to get as much information as they can.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the Israeli attacks on the Gazan border towns during the 1948-59 anniversary of the Yom Kippur War
The bloodshed began on the Jewish Simchat Torah holiday, and a day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, when Israel came under attack by Arab countries.
Speaking to the mayors of southern border towns that were hit by the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s response will change the Middle East.
There has been an increase in violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers this past year, which has displaced hundreds of Palestinians, according to the United Nations. The conflict intensified when Israeli police conducted raids in cities such as Jenin and Nablus.
Schneider told NPR that Netanyahu’s appointments of two controversial figures to his cabinet increased the tension in Israeli politics.
“He nominated someone who was convicted for eight times in inciting violence against Arabs,” Schneider said, referring to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security. This is a person who was not supposed to be in government and who was therefore banned by the state. Netanyahu made him a strong leader and someone who is fully engaged in politics.”
After mass protests broke out for months, Netanyahu decided to delay the reform of Israel’s judiciary, but not abandon his plan due to support from the far-right politicians.
But, in the short term, Hamas’ ability to survive and withstand an Israeli response is in question. And even with its military superiority, Telhami and Schneider see no winning military strategy for Israel.
With the most far-right, ultranationalist and religiously conservative government Israel had seen in power, Hamas saw an opportunity as conditions worsened for Palestinians – not only those in Gaza, who have been living under a blockade for 16 years, but the West Bank as well, according to Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland.
Telhami said there has been an increase in settler violence and an encroachment in East Jerusalem. People don’t know how important Jerusalem is to the Palestinians and people in the Muslim world. This operation is called Al Aqsa Flood and it refers to the holy mosque in Jerusalem. They’re trying to capture that mood.
The Israelis could destroy Hamas and destroy Gaza. What should happen after that? Telhami said that the Biden administration needed to change it’s approach because it has been focused on brokering a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Schneider states that the goal for Netanyahu was to avoid the creation of a future Palestinian state. And he did that in the way he approached Hamas, by allowing cash to flow into Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, and making deals with the militants via Egypt.
“They think they’ve undermined Israeli deterrence. Telhami said they’ve shown Israel to be weaker than it really is. “They’re becoming more popular in the Arab and Muslim countries, you can see people rallying behind them in places like Morocco that have already made peace with Israel and Egypt too.”
Source: Why Hamas and Israel reached this moment now — and what comes next
Ido Dan, the Hamas Violent Circle, and the War on Gaza: Why Israelis Are Taking Their Lives Seriously
“If I were in the Biden administration’s position, I would already start laying out knowing that there’s going to be a deadlock,” he said. “Even if there’s a military outcome that ends the military part of the conflict, there’s going to be a need for some political shift that’s dramatic, far more than they were anticipating, and they need to plan it now.”
The war isn’t outside of Israel. Schneider said it was inside Israel. “I don’t ever recall that in recent history. And I have to tell you, we are losing big time. They’re losing a lot of money. It’s a vicious circle of blood with no end in sight. A situation that could easily go the other way. And it’s just horrific.”
Ido Dan’s home is filled with dirty dishes. Party decorations from a weekend birthday party for his twin 6-year-old girls are still up. The tech start-up coach has spent every waking moment trying to find out the whereabouts of several family members who disappeared Saturday after Hamas militants stormed into their towns killing civilians and taking others hostage. Dan was speaking with an NPR team in Israel.
“If there’s one message that I want to pass to the Hamas is whatever your objectives or goals are, leave the elderly and the kids out of it,” Dan said. “Just release them first. Please, let them go.
There’s growing concern over how Hamas militants are treating the hostages in Gaza, which is under new siege by Israeli forces that have cut off food, fuel, water and electricity from entering. Power plants there will be shutting down within hours due to the lack of fuel, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The military wing of Hamas has warned that it will kill a hostage for every bomb dropped by the Israeli army on the Gaza Strip.
Dan said that what it says in Arabic is don’t hurt him, and that the hostages are more likely being held as a bargaining chip.
Dan is still alarmed by the way Hamas carried out such a highly choreographed invasion, as well as the killings and murders of more than 1000 militant fighters and the “kills and humiliation of bodies we saw only with Islamic State.” He is worried about how Israel’s intelligence services were caught off-guard by the attack that many in Israel think is 9/11.
The prime minister and his cabinet should be kicked out, and the commanders should be thrown in jail, if they are still in power. I’m not sure what happened here. Dan said nobody can. The radio version of this story was produced by Taylor Haney and Nina Kravinsky and edited by Arezou Rezvani. The edited version was a digital one.