Weekly Briefing: A year on from October 7 Israel is out of control

The images coming out of Lebanon and Gaza are horrifying. As I write this, well over a million Lebanese civilians are displaced as the Israeli military carries out punishing bombing raids across nearly the entire country, and over 2,000 have been killed. We’ve watched them drop so-called “bunker buster” bombs on residential blocks in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, in an attempt to kill the leadership of Hezbollah, never mind the civilians who may be in the way. Like in Gaza, Israel is targeting hospitals and schools, border crossings, and infrastructure. That the international community is allowing this to go on is nothing short of a calamity.

If you are watching this unfold and wondering where international law is in all this madness, you are not alone. Israel is threatening to forcibly relocate the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, today called for ending weapons transfers to Israel over its actions in Gaza, and the 88 members of the International Organisation of La Francophonie called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Neither will happen. The United States is committed to continuing to supply weapons to Israel and provide the diplomatic cover it needs to continue this rampage across the Middle East. International law has been reduced to whatever the United States allows.

We may soon see even more regional escalation, depending on what Israel does in response to Iran’s rocket attack just a few days ago. We could very well be on the brink of a full regional war. Israel and its seeming forever leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, are drunk on military power. War and destruction were always going to be Netanyahu’s legacy. This genocidal rampage will be Joe Biden’s too.

– Dave Reed, Publisher

p.s. We are launching a week of special coverage on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Be sure to visit our site over the coming days for some truly moving content our editorial team has been busy preparing for the last several weeks.

Israel’s forever war and what comes next

Abdaljawad Omar looks at Israel’s cycle of “conquest and entrapment.” In Gaza and Lebanon, Israel is projecting its force while burrowing itself deeper into a quagmire. While it may achieve brief operational successes, it fails to extinguish the spirit of the resistance or coerce it into submission.

👶 Tareq Hajjaj and Qassam Muaddi published a powerful article about Israel’s year of war on children. They write, “While the effects of Israel’s war in Gaza have understandably garnered the most global attention, the Israeli violations against Palestinian childhood in both the West Bank and Gaza have made it clear that Israel has launched a war against an entire generation across Palestine.”

💣 Mondoweiss’ Palestine Bureau filed its report on Iran’s attack on Israeli targets this week. Israel and the U.S. have claimed the attack was a failure for Iran, but videos uploaded to social media platforms and our reporter’s own observations suggest otherwise.

🇺🇸 Michael Arria, our U.S. correspondent, published two stories worth your time this week. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to block a $20 billion arms sale to Israel recently approved by the Biden administration. This will be the first time Congress will ever vote on blocking weapons to Israel. He also spoke to analyst Mouin Rabbani about U.S. motivations in the Middle East and why the Biden administration fully supports Israel’s escalations against Lebanon and Iran. Check both stories out.

🧑‍⚖️ Jacob Goldberg wrote about a letter obtained by Mondoweiss in which the American Bar Association urged congressional leaders to pass a bill that would require the adoption of the IHRA antisemitism definition less than two years after the ABA refused to adopt it itself.

🚨 Tareq Hajjaj keeps us focused on Gaza in an article about the Israeli army escalating its massacres in Gaza’s displacement centers while attention is on Lebanon: “In the morning when the military withdrew [from Khan Younis], 51 people were found dead. The following day, October 3, the Gaza Health Ministry said in its daily report that the Israeli army had carried out eight massacres that killed 99 people.”

✈️ Qassam Muaddi reported on the Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Tulkarem that killed 20 Palestinians. It was the first such attack in two decades. “We’ve been living through the occupation’s raids for more than a year now, but this was different,” says an eyewitness.

🇩🇪 Hebh Jamal wrote about German police raids on the homes of Palestine activists ahead of October 7 commemorations: “On Monday, September 30, 125 Berlin police officers conducted early morning raids on the homes of five Palestine activists in what movement leaders believe was an intimidation tactic ahead of October 7 anniversary protests.”

👁️ Ana Gebrim and Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky ask What prevents us from seeing and comprehending the catastrophe in Gaza? And why is there silence? in their essay, Seeing and Not Seeing the Catastrophe: Notes on fragmentation. They employ fragmentation as a possible language to address the current phenomenon of destruction. The writing of the fragment through short excerpts that describe the problem of dealing with the ongoing catastrophe.

🌐 Mitchell Plitnick says the mood in Washington today is similar to 2003 when the Bush administration’s neocons sought to remake the Middle East. This time, a joint vision shared by Israel and the Biden administration seeks to remake the region in the West’s vision.