• Catastrophe in Gaza: What’s Next? — Part 1:  ft. Inès Abdel Razek (Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy), Fadi Quran (Avaaz), in conversation with FMEP’s Lara Friedman
• Catastrophe in Gaza: What’s Next? — Part 2: ft. Sari Bashi (Human Rights Watch), Amjad Iraqi (+972 Magazine), in conversation with FMEP’s Lara Friedman
• Gaza, Israel and the 2023 War: Are there any red lines?: ft.  Jamil Dakwar (Human Rights Lawyer & Adjunct Professor, New York University and Hunter College); Katherine Gallagher (Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional rights); and Dr. Raz Segal (Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide, Stockton University); in conversation with Khaled Elgindy (MEI) and Lara Friedman (FMEP) (co-hosted with MEI)

1.Bills, Resolutions

2. Letters
3. Hearings & Markups
4. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements

• Sheikh Jarrah Eviction Case Scheduled for November 14th
• Settler Violence & Forcible Transfer Continues to Escalate
• IDF Launches Program to Formalize Settler Militia Unit
• Events

• Washington Post: No ‘temporary cease-fire’ without return of hostages, Netanyahu says
• Middle East Eye: Israel-Palestine live: Critically wounded Palestinians killed in Shifa hospital bombing
• Haaretz Daily Updates: Rocket Barrage Fired on Tel Aviv, Central Israel; IDF Says It Hit Ambulance Used by Hamas in Gaza
• Daily updates from Anera, which supports Palestinian refugees & vulnerable communities: Gaza and West Bank Response Log 
• UNRWA’s ongoing reports on the situation in the Gaza Strip: 

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #27:

“For the second consecutive day, on 2 November, the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened for the movement of people, allowing the evacuation of about 60 wounded Palestinians to an Egyptian field hospital, alongside some 400 foreign passport holders. The Erez crossing with Israel remains closed. Israeli ground operations in northern Gaza and Gaza city, alongside intense bombardments, continued. Between 1 November (noon) and 2 November (14:00), 256 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, bringing the reported fatality toll since the start of the hostilities to 9,061, of whom about two-thirds are children and women, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza. On 2 November, two Israeli soldiers were reportedly killed in Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the start of ground operations to 17.”

“The Hamas-run government in Gaza said that Israeli airstrikes struck residential blocks in the Jabalia refugee camp for a second day, amid a global outcry over the swelling number of civilian deaths and disregard for international humanitarian law by Israeli forces.Dozens of people were reportedly killed on Tuesday when Israeli fighter jets bombed residential areas in the camp on the outskirts of Gaza city, resulting in scenes of collapsed concrete and mangled corpses. The death toll from today’s attack remains unknown. The Israeli military said it had targeted the camp to kill Ibrahim Biari, a top commander who allegedly helped plan Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage in Israel that killed over 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, marking the deadliest day in the Jewish state’s history. Interviewed on CNN, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht made no effort to deny the attack, saying that Israel had sought to minimize civilian deaths but that it was “the tragedy of war.” Hecht noted that Israel had been telling “civilians that are not involved with Hamas, please move south.” Israel says that the Jabalia camp is a nerve center for Hamas.” See also From my hometown in Gaza, the unthinkable news: 36 of my family members are dead (Ghada Ageel//Guardian); ‘You Think of Dying at Any Time’ (NYT); Strikes on south Gaza: BBC verifies attacks in areas of ‘safety’ (BBC: “Since the Israeli military issued the first of several instructions for civilians to evacuate north Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have moved to the south of the strip. But the south has continued to come under Israeli bombardment, leading the UN and other aid organisations to warn that nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians.”) 

“The brave and tireless health workers who have thus far survived have told the world that the health system of Gaza is collapsing or has essentially collapsed. At the same time, the global powers have offered full-throated military, economic, and political support for Israel. The president of the United States has even cast doubt on the death toll released by Palestinian health authorities in Gaza. Aside from enabling mass death, trauma, and destruction in Gaza, the consequences of the world’s complete disavowal of the principles of human rights, of rules of war, and of showing any semblance of humanity when it comes to Palestinians will echo far and into the future. Despite this dismal assessment of the current situation, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza thus far pales in comparison with the potential threats to health that are going to accelerate as conditions worsen and supplies finally run out. At this point, every major humanitarian agency has said that nothing less than an immediate ceasefire and the assurance of safe and sustained access to water, food, health care, and fuel was required to prevent the “catastrophic” situation from deteriorating further. Indeed, in the words of the World Health Organization, “The world must do more.”” See also Palestinians Are Denied Humanity, Even after Death (Yara Asi//Arab Center DC);Decades of underfunding, blockade have weakened Gaza’s health system − the siege has pushed it into abject crisis (Yara Asi//The Conversation); Several killed in explosion outside hospital in Gaza City (NYT); “We Have Lost the Ability to Provide True Care” (Jewish Currents); Gaza Hospitals Are Collapsing and Can Be Targeted Anytime: The International Community Must Intervene and Stop More Israeli Massacres of Palestinian Civilians (Al Haq, Al Mezan, PCHR); Israeli siege forces Gaza’s only cancer hospital to shut amid fuel shortage (Al Jazeera); Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli strike hits Gaza medical convoy (Al Jazeera); A Doctor in Gaza Describes ‘Horrific Scenes’ After Israeli Airstrikes (NYT)

“The Israeli government continues to obstruct this desperately needed humanitarian aid even as it carries out its campaign of aerial bombardment and expands its ground operations in Gaza…Nothing can justify the Hamas-led massacres of Israeli civilians on October 7. These were war crimes. Neither can anything justify the war crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza—including by depriving civilians of life-saving humanitarian aid. The laws of war require parties to facilitate the rapid delivery of relief supplies, subject to inspection and monitoring to prevent diversion or arms delivery. Israel can, in other words, monitor the shipments organized by the UN, but it cannot block a life-saving supply, which is what fuel is to Gaza right now…International humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to take affirmative steps to ensure the welfare of civilians. In previous hostilities, brutal as they were, the Israeli government at least partially acknowledged these obligations. In each of its four wars in Gaza since 2008, it maintained the flow of drinking water and electricity into Gaza—recognizing that civilians in the Strip depended on the grids and water pipes laid between Gaza and Israel—and found ways to open the Israeli crossings for humanitarian delivery.”

“The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full for the first time by +972’s partner site Local Call yesterday. The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry — a small governmental body that produces policy research and shares its proposals with intelligence agencies, the army, and other ministries. It assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in the framework of the current war, and recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. It also calls on Israel to enlist the international community in support of this endeavor. The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972.” See also Israeli Intel Ministry Suggests Relocating Gazans to Sinai After Hamas War (Haaretz); Palestinians fear they’re being displaced permanently. Here’s why that’s logical. (Vox)

“The head of the powerful paramilitary Hezbollah movement in Lebanon broke his silence on Friday after nearly a month of skirmishes on the Lebanese-Israeli border amid the ongoing Hamas-Israel war, betting on a Hamas “victory” in the conflict and praising recent attacks by affiliated groups in Iraq and Yemen. “The end of this battle will be Gaza’s victory, and the defeat of this enemy,” said Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, in a much-anticipated televised speech amid growing concerns over the potential of the war in the Gaza Strip to evolve into a wider regional conflict. In the speech broadcast to thousands of supporters gathered at various locations in Lebanon, including Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s main stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Nasrallah warned that the situation on the Lebanese front hinges on Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, but refrained from declaring any official intervention in the war.  “Our Lebanese front is open to all possibilities,” he said. “We should all be ready and prepared for all possibilities and scenarios to come.” Nasrallah added that an expanded war was a “realistic possibility.” See also After Nasrallah’s speech, Israeli military sees diminished Hezbollah threat (Al Monitor)

“Speaking during a visit to Israel Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed Washington’s desire to see humanitarian pauses in the fighting in the Gaza Strip, while acknowledging the challenge of preventing Hamas from using the temporary cessations to its advantage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Blinken met shortly before holding his Tel Aviv press conference, appeared to push back against such pauses, saying in a statement that he rejected any temporary halt to the fight against Hamas that does not include “the release of our hostages.” He noted that he had said as much to the top US diplomat. In another sign of some daylight between the sides, Blinken called for supplying fuel to the Strip, alongside other humanitarian aid, saying “mechanisms” could be put in place to ensure it reaches Gaza hospitals. He also noted concerns shared with Israel of Hamas siphoning off fuel for its own needs. Netanyahu, meanwhile, insisted that Israel “will not enable the entry of fuel to Gaza.”” See also Biden calls for ‘pause’ in Israel-Gaza conflict to get hostages out (ABC)

“The Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen attacked Israel on Tuesday, demonstrating the potential for the war in the Gaza Strip to spread throughout the region…Earlier, Prime Minister of the Houthi government in Yemen Abdelaziz bin Habtour told Agence France-Presse that the group fired drones toward Eilat in southern Israel in retaliation for the war against Hamas.”

“Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States. Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have also joined the fight online, along with extremist groups, like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were previously at odds with Hamas. The deluge of online propaganda and disinformation is larger than anything seen before, according to government officials and independent researchers — a reflection of the world’s geopolitical division.”

“A senior member of Hamas has hailed the systematic slaughter of civilians in Israel on October 7, vowing in an interview that if given the chance, the Palestinian terror group will repeat similar assaults many times in the future until Israel is exterminated. The remarks by Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, were swiftly shared online by Israeli and Western officials as a vindication of the Jewish state’s resolve to destroy the terror group’s military capabilities in its ongoing war in Gaza, and as proof that no ceasefire can be reached until the threat of additional murderous attacks is removed. “Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamad said in an interview with Lebanese TV channel LBC on October 24, which was translated and published Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)…“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” Hamad continued. “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

“The death toll from the Israeli attacks on Gaza now stands at more 9,000. The Israeli government and military remain single-mindedly focused on their stated goal of eliminating the threat posed by Hamas in the wake of its Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, during which more than 1,400 people were killed. But around the world, there are signs of mounting concern about the costs to the Palestinian population. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decisively rejected a cease-fire, saying “this is a time for war.” International humanitarian organizations are calling attention to the daunting scale of civilian suffering. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, told the Security Council that “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions.” On Wednesday, even President Biden — who has otherwise stood out with his staunch support for Israel — urged a humanitarian “pause.” We asked several commentators from the region and beyond to share their perspectives on the issue.” 

“The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post, protesting that the UN is “failing” in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and citing the US, UK and much of Europe as “wholly complicit in the horrific assault”. Craig Mokhiber wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, saying: “This will be my last communication to you” in his role in New York. Mokhiber, who was stepping down having reached retirement age, wrote: “Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it.”” See also Israel-Gaza war: UN general assembly calls for ‘immediate, durable humanitarian truce’ (Guardian); Q&A: Former UN official Craig Mokhiber on Gaza and genocide (Middle East Eye)

“Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday in protest of the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip and the mounting civilian death toll in Israel’s war against Hamas…Jordan also asked Israel’s Foreign Ministry to tell Ambassador Rogel Rachman, who was temporarily called back to Israel because of security threats in Jordan, not to return to Amman. According to the statement, “the return of the ambassadors will be linked to Israel stopping its war on Gaza and stopping the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing and all its measures that deprive the Palestinians of their right to food, water, medicine, and their right to live safely and stable on their national soil.”” See also from Al Monitor: Chile, Colombia, Jordan recall Israel ambassadors after Bolivia cuts ties, Israel recalls diplomats from Turkey after Erdogan’s ‘grave’ statements, Iran urges sanctions on Israel, says Hamas ready for more ‘surprise’ attacks

“French authorities have banned demonstrations in support of Gaza, arrested protesters, and moved to dissolve several Palestine advocacy groups.” Also see Will Israel shut down Al Jazeera? (+972: “The government is advancing regulations to close the network’s Israel branch, a move journalists and free press defenders decry as baseless and dangerous.”) 

“Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has reached record levels in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to rights groups, which warn that the radical settler movement is seeking to further entrench its presence across the occupied territory. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, says at least seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers since the war in Gaza began; more than 100 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces over the same time period, according to the United Nations. Some 500 Palestinians have been driven from their homes…the victims of settler violence are overwhelmingly civilians. Haunted by memories of displacement, Palestinian families fear they are living through another period of forcible dispossession.” See also Israel-Palestine war: Settler attacks on the rise in West Bank villages (Middle East Eye); The Uprooting of Life in Gaza and the West Bank (Raja Shehadeh//New Yorker); Opinion | Amid the Mourning, Israel’s Settlement Enterprise Celebrates a Great Victory (Amira Hass//Haaretz); Palestinians recount settler, army torture amid surge in West Bank expulsions (+972); Blinken presses Israeli leaders on West Bank settler attacks (Al Monitor)

“The Israeli goal of cleansing as much of Area C as possible from Palestinian communities is not a new goal. Area C is just over sixty per cent of the West Bank—basically, all of the West Bank outside of the major Palestinian population centers and towns…These Palestinian communities have been under threat and pressure of military violence and settler violence and whatnot for years already. The legal phrase that describes it is creating a “coercive environment” so that the Palestinians will leave of their own volition—that they will just eventually, one day, collapse under this ongoing pressure. And this is not new. What has happened since October 7th is an escalation of this process. The Israeli state, through its settlers, is trying to take advantage of the fact that all eyes are on Gaza and is intensifying dramatically the pressure on Palestinian communities. I would assume from the Israeli perspective this has been a success. Thirteen Palestinian communities have basically fled in horror in the three weeks since October 7th…The uprooting of Palestinian communities all over the West Bank is not a project of the settlers, the bad ones, the good ones, or the other ones. It is a state project.” See also ‘Criminal Record Can Be Overlooked’ | Israel’s Army Plans to Recruit Settlers With No IDF Experience to Defend Ultra-orthodox West Bank Settlements (Haaretz)

“Harassment and intimidation by Israeli settlers, often with a military escort, are hardly a new phenomenon for the Palestinians of Susiya, a small village in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied West Bank. Since the war that began on Oct. 7, however, we’re seeing an alarming escalation — and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between settlers and soldiers.Throughout the past three weeks, settler-soldier militias have been raiding rural communities across the West Bank, assaulting Palestinian residents, and threatening them with more violence if they do not leave their homes. While the whole world is watching Israel’s assault on Gaza, the settlers have seized the opportunity to ramp up their attacks in an attempt to forcibly and systematically displace hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of Palestinians.” Also see Luján, Van Hollen, Merkley Urge Biden Administration to Protect Palestinian Communities in the West Bank: “U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to urge the Israeli government to uphold the rule of law in the West Bank and discourage extremist settlers from violent attacks against Palestinian communities.” See also ‘A new Nakba’: settler violence forces Palestinians out of West Bank villages (The Guardian); Off-duty IDF soldier arrested on suspicion of shooting dead Palestinian olive farmer (Times of Israel); ‘Unsafe in own home’: Israeli settlers spread terror in South Hebron Hills (Al Jazeera)

“Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Palestinians and injured dozens more in the occupied West Bank in overnight raids and confrontations on Friday. At least five were killed in Jenin where the Israeli military blew up the homes of two wanted Palestinians and destroyed at least three monuments in and near the Jenin refugee camp, local sources told Al Jazeera on Friday.” See also Checkpoints, Closed Shops, Not Enough Medicine: Hawara Has Become a Ghost Town (Haaretz: The Israeli military has set up roadblocks, cutting the West Bank Palestinian town in two, making it difficult to move or reach surrounding communities. Residents think twice about leaving the house for fear of settler attacks. The military says it has ordered troops to allow free pedestrian traffic”); Videos appear to show Israeli soldiers abusing bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees (NBC); West Bank death toll exceeds 120 as US warns Israel over settler violence (Al Monitor)

“On Oct. 25, Professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a lecturer at a college in Jerusalem, participated in a discussion in a faculty WhatsApp group about the horrific events of Oct. 7. In response to another lecturer’s message, she wrote that “the massacre,” referring to the actions of Hamas, reminded her of something the French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote about race relations, adding a paraphrased quote: “‘After so many years that the neck of the occupied has been suffocating under your iron foot and suddenly was given a chance to raise his eyes, what kind of gaze did you expect you would see there?’ We saw this gaze,” Ms. Peled-Elhanan wrote to her colleagues. A few hours later, Ms. Peled-Elhanan — a winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for human rights and the freedom of thought and a bereaved mother whose 13-year-old daughter, Smadar, was murdered in a 1997 terrorist attack by Hamas — received a letter from the president of the college. He advised her that she was suspended and summoned her to a hearing on whether her employment would be terminated. The charge: “displays of understanding to the horrific act of Hamas” and expressing “justification to the heinous act.”

…The crackdown is not only at institutions of higher learning. The Israel Police and the prosecutor’s office reported to the Knesset that as of Oct. 25, over 126 criminal investigations have been opened and 110 arrests have been made after individual statements made in public, on social media or in closed groups regarding the events of Oct. 7 and the ongoing war in Gaza.…The suppression of speech and targeting of critics of Israel’s policy toward the conflict has always had a strategic goal. It is all clearly part of the grand plan that has been systematically peeling democratic values from the Israeli system of government in recent decades: the annexation of the occupied lands and the establishment of a full, official ethnonationalist Jewish regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Crushing dissent and eliminating the political force of Palestinian citizens of Israel are crucial conditions that must be met to achieve that goal. Tragically, proponents of this hellish future are now exploiting our collective trauma, grief and anger toward their own dystopian ends.”

“By nightfall, Palestinian students were barricaded in their dormitories as hundreds of furious protesters gathered outside, kicking at doors and trying to break in. “Death to Arabs!” they chanted. “Go back to Gaza.” “I really felt like they wanted to kill me,” said Yasmine, a 21-year-old who was among about 50 students trapped inside the building at Netanya Academic College before being evacuated by the city…In recent weeks, some Israelis have pored through the social media posts of their Arab neighbors and classmates, seeking out anything that could be deemed as sympathetic to Hamas or to the Palestinian cause more broadly. Telegram groups are “doxxing” Palestinian Israelis viewed as having split loyalties, posting their phone numbers and addresses online. “What happened in Netanya is a very, very dangerous signal,” said Hassan Jabareen, the founder of Adalah, an Israeli nongovernmental organization focused on the rights of Palestinian citizens. The group is following the cases of about 100 students facing disciplinary action for social media posts. “It sends a message to the Arabs that you are not safe,” he said.” See also ‘Death to Arabs’: Students Evacuated From Dorms After Hundreds of Rioters Attempt Break-in (Haaretz)

“Arrests, interrogations, firings, expulsion from college – Arab citizens are being targeted by Israeli security officials and even by their own coworkers in a recent wave of incidents that threaten to tear apart the delicate fabric of Israeli society”

“While the treatment of activists felt threatening before October 7, it is “much more threatening” now, he said…But did the shock of the Hamas attack on southern Israel cause the country’s peaceniks to question their commitment to the Palestinian cause? No, says Neta Golan, an Israeli pro-Palestinian activist and an active member of Israelis Against Apartheid…Her group sent a letter to Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on Wednesday requesting “accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes”. See also Risking arrest and assault, Israelis begin protesting Gaza war (+972: “Gathering outside the army’s headquarters in central Tel Aviv, dozens of Israelis called for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages.”); Reeling from Hamas’ massacre, a kibbutz pleads for the return of hostages(+972)

“Those three fateful weeks inside the Gaza Strip transformed me from a deeply religious, Modern Orthodox yeshiva student and West Bank settler into an activist with the movement opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, first with the antiwar veterans organization Breaking the Silence and now with Extend, a group that connects Palestinian and Israeli human rights leaders with American Jewish audiences. All our casualties and the suffering brought on Palestinians in Gaza accomplished nothing since our leaders refused to work on creating a political reality in which more violence would not be inevitable. While I believe in self-defense, fighting in Gaza taught me that if my government doesn’t change its approach from crushing Palestinian hope to committing to Palestinian independence, not only will this war kill an untold number of Israelis and Palestinians in addition to the thousands who already have died, but it also will not decisively end terror. A ground invasion is doomed to failure.”

“Palestinian civilians are not to blame for Hamas’s atrocities or for the grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They are its victims. As with civilians in any conflict, the lives of Palestinian civilians must be protected. That means the flow of food, water, medicine, fuel and other essential humanitarian aid into Gaza must increase — immediately and significantly. It means Palestinian civilians must be able to stay out of harm’s way. It means every possible precaution must be taken to safeguard humanitarian sites. And it means humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes…Addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza also aligns with our nation’s most deeply held principles, including our belief that every civilian life is equally valuable and equally worthy of protection — no matter what his or her nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or faith. A civilian is a civilian is a civilian. This is what we would expect if we were to find our own civilians — and our own families — trapped in a conflict. We, too, would want to be able to feed our loved ones, care for our sick, have safe water to drink and be protected from attacks. We should demand no less for Palestinian civilians.” See also Former Obama official Jack Lew confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Israel (WaPo)

“But three weeks in, only about 10% of the House Democratic caucus has called for a cessation to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Israel’s human rights record, has thus far been the only senator to call for a halt to the Israeli air assault, saying on October 17th that “the bombs and missiles from both sides must end.” But he has yet to use the language of “ceasefire,”…In lieu of calling for a ceasefire, some normally dovish Democrats have called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza, and for Israel to adhere to international law in its assault…The reticence of even some of the most progressive members of Congress to embrace a ceasefire illuminates the formidable obstacles that Palestinian rights activists face. Advocates for a ceasefire point to numerous factors that explain Congress’s lockstep support for Israel and near-unanimous opposition to ending the bombing, including the shock and horror that most on the Hill felt at the October 7th attacks, and the fear that dissuades many liberals from going against Israel-advocacy groups such as AIPAC. Some emphasized that Congress’s skepticism of a ceasefire has been reinforced by the Biden administration’s entrenched opposition.” See also Legal Organizations Put Members of Congress on Notice of Complicity in Genocide (Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, & Palestine Legal); Israel-Palestine war: In Gaza, the US is an active partner in genocide (Brad Parker, Defense for Children International – Palestine//Middle East Eye)

“President Joe Biden’s support among Arab Americans, who are crucial voters in battleground election states, has plunged from a comfortable majority in 2020 to just 17%, a new poll shows, amid growing anger over the Democratic president’s support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The poll, released Tuesday, marks the first time since its inception in 1997 that a majority of Arab Americans did not identify as Democrats – 32% now identify as Republicans and 31% as independents. Forty percent of those polled said they would vote for former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate in 2024, up 5 percentage points from 2020. The poll is the latest evidence that Biden’s campaign for a second term in office is rapidly losing Muslim and Arab Americans support over his staunch support of Israel. These voters have traditionally voted for Democratic candidates and are prominent in hotly contested states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, that could decide the 2024 presidential election.” See also More Democrats warn Biden about how Israel is conducting response (WaPo)

“On Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning what it called “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” across the country following a day of walkouts. Hundreds of students, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, walked out of classes at Columbia University, Princeton University, New York University, and dozens of other colleges in what they described as a demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and end to U.S. military support to Israel. The Senate resolution condemned student groups for ostensibly supporting Hamas as part of a broader government and corporate pushback on protests over the war. As the conflict intensifies, disputes are spilling over from campuses and government into many workplaces as well. Recent weeks have seen pressure by government officials against student activist groups, the creation of public blacklists in multiple industries, and a wave of politically motivated firings over people’s publicly stated views on the conflict.” See also ADL, Brandeis Center send letter to university presidents calling on them to investigate SJP’s terrorism ties

“In the weeks since October 7th, when Hamas attacked the south of Israel and Israel began bombing Gaza, American Jewish institutions that had previously expressed alienation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government have mostly unitedaround a pro-Israel position. At the same time, however, record numbers of progressive American Jews have joined the anti-occupation organizations Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow in taking to the streets to call for a ceasefire. In the last three weeks, Jewish protestors have blocked entrances to the White House, occupied a Capitol Hill building rotunda, and shut down New York City’s Grand Central station to protest US support for bombings that have already killed more than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 3,000 of whom have been children.” See also Hundreds arrested at NYC’s Grand Central as pro-Palestinian rallies take place across the globe (JTA); Palestinians are asking, ‘Are you with us?’ American Jews are showing we are (Josie Felt//+972)

“On the afternoon of his 15th birthday, Attiya Nabaheen was walking home from his school in Gaza when an Israeli soldier shot him in the neck. It was November 2014, and Mr. Nabaheen was on his family’s land, situated about 500 meters from the militarized Green Line demarcating the Gaza Strip…I’m a human rights lawyer from Haifa, now completing my doctorate studies in the United States. I also litigate Palestinian civil and political rights cases, and Mr. Nabaheen was my client…I say Mr. Nabaheen was my client because last month I received word that he, along with 12 of his family members, 10 of them children, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his family’s building the day after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel…When an Israeli soldier shot Mr. Nabaheen in the neck, it was the status quo. There was no active war, and yet the daily situation was dire for Palestinians. Even so-called perfect victims like Attiya Nabaheen — 15, unarmed, on his family’s land, and shot during a cease-fire — could not pass the legal muster of the Israeli system or prevail over the violent bureaucracy of the law. Mr. Nabaheen’s life and death encapsulate the Palestinian search for undelivered justice, an ongoing nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” that has only intensified in the last month. So many Palestinians continue to suffer a similar fate to that of Mr. Nabaheen, falling victim to the arbitrary brutality of Israeli shelling. As I write this, more than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gazan health ministry. Many of them, like Mr. Nabaheen, had already survived several wars before finally succumbing to this one. And like Mr. Nabaheen, there will likely be no recognition or recourse for their tragedies. There will be no meaningful avenues through which their families can seek justice.”

“As a poet, writer, and advocate for Palestinian culture and the arts, I have been volunteering since 2015 as a mentor with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a project of the nonprofit Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, that offers youth in Gaza an opportunity to tell their stories to the world, beyond the headlines. The name, WANN, refers to the fact that so often in the western media, Palestinians are reduced to statistics and numbers, especially as victims in war; they are mentioned without names, humanity, or agency…Theirs is indeed a desperate plea to the world: We are trying hard to counter our own dehumanization and to communicate our plight, but the world continues to treat us as expendable, as statistics, as people not worthy of lives and dreams.”

“My dread became reality on Oct. 20 upon hearing from Tanya, one of my relatives. Her family lost a loved one who had been sheltering in the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza, one of the world’s oldest churches. An Israeli airstrike hit one of the four compounds of the church, killing 18 Palestinian Christians, and injuring at least 20…The Christian community had to hold a mass funeral to bury the dead outside of the Church of St. Porphyrius, followed by a mass baptism service for the children of the community in case they, too, may soon die. There is fear now that the Christian presence in Gaza, and across Palestine, may ultimately disappear altogether…Palestinian Christians, descendants of the oldest Christian communities, feel largely abandoned by the world — particularly by other Christian communities in Western countries — who seem indifferent or even hostile to the Palestinian struggle for freedom and human rights.”

“For many Jews, the specific nature of Hamas’ attack – the mass slaughter and the way in which Hamas gunmen went systematically from house to house murdering families, and, in some cases, brutally butchering people – evokes deep, traumatic memories of the Holocaust. What took place on Oct. 7 was the largest single-day killing of Jews since the Holocaust. What many Jews see in Oct. 7, therefore, is not just a continuation of a long-standing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. What happened on Oct. 7, in the minds of many, is qualitatively different. The fact that many other people don’t seem to recognize or acknowledge that, or respond as many Jews would hope, is why some Jews feel that there’s antisemitism lurking beneath the surface – that Israeli Jews and Zionists in general have been so dehumanized and demonized that it’s become somehow acceptable for them to be killed, even if they’re civilians, including children and babies.” See also Colleges braced for antisemitism and violence. It’s happening. (WaPo)

“The rhetorical value of casting your enemies as Nazis — which the Israeli right and its supporters frequently do when discussing Palestinians writ large — is the way it suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that there is only one logical, even moral, course of action: the complete elimination of the Nazi-designates and anyone deemed to be affiliated with them. Thus is the current discourse awash with unabashed calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing, issued from a distressingly broad array of sources, and egged on by the idea that, in the words of a columnist in Israel’s most widely-read newspaper, “Hamas and the Gazans are one and the same.”…It is cruel, at a time when there is a worrying depletion of knowledge about the Holocaust, to witness Holocaust memory being applied as a double-edged sword. What should be a universalist set of lessons applied to atrocities everywhere is being warped to validate violent, ethnonationalist objectives. As the hundreds of Jewish demonstrators and allies who filled the U.S. Capitol last week to protest the Gaza war stressed, “never again means never again for anyone.””

“On Monday, Oct. 30, Khalil Abu Yahia, a past contributor to +972, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip. Below is a tribute to Khalil from his friend Sahar Vardi, an Israeli human rights and anti-militarism activist and occasional +972 contributor.:

“It continued like this: once every few days we would write to one another; once every few days he would update. Update that he is alive. Update on who else had died. And somehow, almost every time, he would sign off with how important it is to him that I know that this hasn’t changed what he believes, hasn’t shaken his desire for another world — a better, more equal one. “I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone,” he wrote…He will no longer submit his PhD application — which, he told me during one of these conversations, he’d have worked on, even during all of this, if he’d had a little more electricity. He will no longer respond to me with an impossible combination of horror and optimism. He will no longer tell me how much he is waiting to meet me one day, when all this is over. The only thing he is still able to do is make me cry. And maybe one other thing: to remind us that this is why we are here, the human rights activists and freedom fighters. To struggle. To keep going. So that this won’t happen again to anyone.”