Back to class — or shelters? Next school year snags Israel’s Lebanon strategy

Back to class — or shelters? Next school year snags Israel’s Lebanon strategy
A displaced Palestinian boy sits next to belongings at a school he returned to with his family, after the school was badly damaged in an Israeli raid, in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, June 2, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 03 June 2024
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Back to class — or shelters? Next school year snags Israel’s Lebanon strategy

Back to class — or shelters? Next school year snags Israel’s Lebanon strategy
  • Sept 1 becomes semi-official target date for border calm
  • Israel threatens escalation, but open to mediated truce
  • Hezbollah links its attacks from Lebanon to Gaza conflict

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel: In dozens of northern Israeli towns and villages, evacuated under fire from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in parallel with the Gaza war, officials hope daily rocket warning sirens will give way to school bells when the academic year starts on Sept 1.
That ticking clock has become a subject of open disagreement within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, testing its cohesion and credibility.
Of 60,000 civilians relocated from northern Israel at the outset of the war, 14,600 are children, scattered in temporary kindergartens and schools, or premises repurposed as makeshift day-care or classes, throughout the country’s interior.
Education Minister Yoav Kisch said Israel is spending $38 million building new kindergartens and schools just out of rocket range in the north, which can take children if their original schools are not yet safe and ready by Sept. 1.
If the new buildings turn out not to be needed, other uses can be found for them.
“I’m hoping that this investment will not be used for the kids that live on the border,” he told Reuters in an interview.
It would take at least a month to prepare the orphaned northern schools, some of which are in rubble-strewn and dilapidated communities, for next year’s intake of pupils.
“So if we are going to see a solution by Aug. 1, we know that we can start on Sept. 1,” he said. Failing that, “we’re going to shift all our focus on to the other option.”

A LIMIT THAT WE PASSED
Dislocated and hard-put to do homework at the cramped accommodation provided to their families by the state, many of the pupils from the north are slipping, teachers say. Their high-school drop-out rate can reach 5 percent, according to Kisch — around double the national average.
Some of their parents are looking to resettle permanently, giving up on ever returning to their battered hometowns.
“I’m not sure that all the citizens of Kiryat Shmona will go back to Kiryat Shmona,” said Ofer Zafrani, principal of the border city’s Danziger High School, which relocated to a row of converted offices atop a multiplex cinema outside Tel Aviv.
“We understand this is the price we need to pay,” he told Reuters as pupils milled noisily around him. “But I think that there is a limit that we passed. It’s too much.”
In the south, even in communities alongside the Gaza Strip, some Israeli families have been able to return home as their armed forces operate across the fence to suppress rocket fire. Zafrani said citizens in the north need a similar chance to go home.
“We must be back — and not only be back, but there has to be a solution for the situation for the north, like the south, so that we will feel safe,” Zafrani said.
In Gaza, eight months of Israel’s campaign to eliminate Hamas have ravaged the enclave’s education system.

TWO FRONTS, INTERTWINED
The exchanges of fire on Israel’s northern front, in parallel with the war in Gaza, have so far been contained without escalating into an all-out cross-border war in Lebanon, like the one Israel last fought against Hezbollah 18 years ago.
But scores of people have been killed on both sides. On the Lebanese side, 90,000 civilians have also been evacuated, around a third of them children, most now registered in new schools, according to UN figures.
Israel has threatened possibly imminent escalation to an invasion of Lebanon — while also leaving the door open to a US- or French-mediated truce which would keep the Iranian-backed fighters away from the border.
Touring the frontier on May 23, Netanyahu said Israel has “detailed, important, even surprising plans” for driving Hezbollah back, “but we don’t let the enemy in on these plans.”
His refusal to get into details or dates was a swipe at Netanyahu’s political rival turned war cabinet partner, Benny Gantz, who has threatened to bolt the emergency coalition this week over what he says is a lack of clear strategy.
Gantz also visited the north at the same time as Netanyahu, in a separate armored cavalcade.
“I call on the government to commence preparations, already today, for us to return residents safely to their homes by September 1, whether through force or an accord,” Gantz said. “We must not allow another year to be lost in the north.”
The two fronts are intertwined, as Hezbollah says it will keep shelling as long as Israel’s war on Palestinian Hamas fighters continues. Both militant groups are allies of Iran.
Promoting a Gaza truce, US President Joe Biden has dangled a knock-on benefit of quiet in south Lebanon.
But some Israeli officials fear being boxed-in: once northern residents return, Hamas might see an opportunity to strike again, calculating that Israel will not want to retaliate lest Hezbollah attacks resume and necessitate fresh evacuations.
Meanwhile, Israeli education officials say they are also preparing for a far more disruptive scenario: full-on war with Hezbollah. That would be likely to put all of Israel under threat from the group’s rockets. Then, Kisch said, most of the country’s schools would be shuttered as civilians take shelter.
“If it will be a long process, there will be homeschooling as well,” said Kisch, who was Israel’s deputy health minister during the COVID lockdowns and remote-learning ordinances.
“But I hope that we’ll be able, with a very strong and effective war, to get this threat out of our way very fast.”


Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says

Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says
Updated 3 sec ago
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Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says

Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says
  • UN official’s remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip
GENEVA: Aid access in Gaza is at a low point with deliveries to parts of the besieged north of the enclave all but impossible, a UN humanitarian official said on Friday.
The remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, avoiding restrictions on US military aid. Israel has said it has worked hard to assist the humanitarian needs in Gaza.
“From our perspective, on all indicators you can possibly think of in a humanitarian response, all of them are going in the wrong direction,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in response to a question at a Geneva press briefing about whether humanitarian access had improved.
“Access is at a low point. Chaos, suffering, despair, death, destruction, displacement are at a high point,” he added.
Laerke voiced concern about north Gaza where residents have been ordered to head south as Israeli forces’ more than month-long incursion continues. Israel says its operations there are designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.
“We have seen and been particularly concerned about the situation in the north of Gaza, which is now effectively under siege and it is near impossible to deliver aid in there. So the operation is being stifled,” Laerke said.
“One of my colleagues described it as, for humanitarian work... you want to jump. You want to jump up and do something. But what he added was: but our legs are broken. So we are being asked to jump while our legs are broken.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct. 13 letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needed to do within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza.
Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter. Other non-UN aid groups say Israel has failed to meet the demands — an allegation Israel has rejected.

Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal
Updated 44 min 36 sec ago
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Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal

Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal
  • Hamas official Basem Naim: Oct. 7 attack ‘an act of self defense’
  • ‘I have the right to live a free and dignified life,’ he tells Sky News

LONDON: A Hamas official has claimed that Israel has not put forward any “serious proposals” for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh, despite the group being ready for one “immediately.”

Dr. Basem Naim told the Sky News show “The World With Yalda Hakim” that the last “well-defined, brokered deal” was put on the table between the two warring sides on July 2.

“It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire ... which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange,” he said. “Unfortunately (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu preferred to go the other way.”

Naim urged the incoming Trump administration to do whatever necessary to help end the war.

He said Hamas does not regret its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 people dead and prompted Israel’s invasion of Gaza that has killed in excess of 43,000 people and left hundreds of thousands injured.

Naim said Israel is guilty of “big massacres” in the Palestinian enclave, and when asked if Hamas bore responsibility as a result of the Oct. 7 attack, he called it “an act of self defense,” adding: “It’s exactly as if you’re accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor.”

He continued: “I’m a member of Hamas, but at the same time I’m an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself, to defend my family.”

When asked if he regrets the Oct. 7 attack, Naim replied: “Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking (on) the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be? This is part of our dignity ... to defend ourselves, to defend our children.”


US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid
Updated 15 November 2024
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US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid
  • Washington had threatened to suspend military support if aid not increased
  • Elizabeth Warren: Failure to hold Israel to account a ‘grave mistake’ that ‘undermines American credibility worldwide’

LONDON: Progressive US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has criticized the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel after Washington delivered an ultimatum last month on improving aid deliveries to Gaza.

The Democratic senator endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress after the State Department said it would not take punitive action against Israel, The Guardian reported.

Official Israeli figures show that the amount of aid reaching Gaza has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, despite the White House’s 30-day ultimatum threatening the loss of military support to Israel if aid was not increased.

The deadline expired on Tuesday as international humanitarian groups warned that Israel had fallen far short of Washington’s stated aid targets. Food security experts also warned that famine is likely imminent in parts of Gaza.

The State Department claimed that Israel was making limited progress on aid and was not blocking relief, meaning it had not violated US law.

Warren, senator for Massachusetts, said in a statement: “On Oct. 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance.

“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians.

“Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”

The joint resolution of disapproval endorsed by Warren can enable Congress to overturn decisions by the president, if passed by the House and Senate.

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont, said next week he will bring new joint resolutions of disapproval to block specific weapon sales to Israel.

“There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said.

On Thursday, 15 senators and 69 Congress members announced efforts to pressure the Biden administration to hold Israeli Cabinet members to account.

The plan targets Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the rise in Israeli settler violence, settlement-building and destabilization across the West Bank.

Warren described the Biden administration’s failure to hold Israel to account as a “grave mistake” that “undermines American credibility worldwide.”

She added: “If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.”


Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival
Updated 33 min 3 sec ago
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Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival
  • The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints

CAIRO: The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints — takes center stage in director Rashid Masharawi’s latest film, which debuted at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.
“It’s a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves,” Masharawi told AFP on Wednesday after the world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams.”
It kicked off the Middle East’s oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Masharawi’s film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to “follow the bird home” — driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.
Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a “deeply symbolic journey” that represents an inversion of the family’s original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel — a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
“It’s no coincidence we’re in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history,” the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.


The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi’s other project featured at the Cairo film festival: “From Ground Zero.”
The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.
For that project, Masharawi — who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film “Haifa” in 1996 — “wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences” and filmmakers on the ground.
In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose “the lie of self-defense,” which he said was Israel’s justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.
The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.
“As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema,” Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking “defends our land far better than any military or political speeches.”


Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director — donning his signature fedora — called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.
“Our cinema can’t always only be a reaction to Israeli actions,” he said.
“It must be the action itself.”
A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the “obstacles to filmmaking under occupation” — including “separation walls, barriers, who’s allowed to go where.”
Like the family in the film, “you never know if authorities will let you get to your location,” he said, especially since Masharawi refuses “on principle” to seek permits from Israeli authorities.
Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes — including “smuggling in” actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
“If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you’re giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs,” he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.
Organizers canceled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.
But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.
Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity “with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon,” where Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.
Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in “From Ground Zero.”
vid-bha/smw


Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call
Updated 15 November 2024
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Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call
  • Israeli drone fires two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a ‘very heavy’ strike
  • Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops

BEIRUT: An air strike hit the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs on Friday, sending plumes of grey smoke into the sky after the Israeli military called for people to evacuate, AFPTV images showed.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone fired two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a “very heavy” strike that levelled a building near municipal offices.
The evacuation order posted on X by Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to leave, warning of imminent strikes.
“All residents in the southern suburbs, specifically ... in the Ghobeiry area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah,” Adraee said in his post.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately.”
His post included maps identifying buildings in the area near Bustan High School.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the Hezbollah stronghold, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
NNA also reported pre-dawn strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military said it had struck “command centers” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and launchers used to fire rockets at Israel on Thursday.
It said that over the past day, the air force had struck more than 120 targets across Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, command centers and a large number of rocket launchers.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
The conflict has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.