Carnage continues in Gaza, Lebanon amid concerns of potential genocide in the West Bank
“America and England deposited their little brother, Israel, on foreign soil, Palestine, which is Arab land. They deprived the Arabs of their own land and sent them into exile. This injustice against the Arabs is now costing America the power and authority that she once exercised in the East. She is on her way out of the Near East. This means bloodshed and plenty of it.”
— The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad “The Fall of America,” 1973 from the chapter, “The Destruction and Fall”
In a recent Israeli cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on a message to the Trump administration: “I have heard people saying: ‘You didn’t say it.’ So here I am saying it again: Israel does not accept the 15-point document.”
He spoke in response to a framework agreement reached months ago by President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace in Washington, a document that lays out steps Hamas and Israel would take to end conflict: One being Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza.
Mr. Netanyahu—whose country receives several billion dollars in U.S. military aid—added that Israel’s military “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed.”
Hamas is the resistance group that functioned as the governing body of occupied Gaza. While some U.S. ideas in negotiations “are acceptable to us and some are not,” the prime minister added, according to an official transcript, “When I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament.”
Points in the plan include implementing a ceasefire, Hamas to disarm, and exclusion of Hamas from future governing roles. Mr. Netanyahu is facing an election in late October and his trial for corruption will continue after he leaves office.
Critics highlight his desperation to win election and pressure from the right wing of his government to end the Gaza peace proposal. The forceful push back by Mr. Netanyahu and President Trump’s subdued response have observers pondering the U.S.-Israel collaboration.
“It’s still within the interest of the Trump administration to pretend that they are trying to work for peace in Gaza and it’s in the interest of Netanyahu to say we’re going to conquer all of Gaza,” said Muhammad Sankari, an activist with the U.S. Palestinian Community Network.
“They’re playing to their base. It allows Netanyahu to say, ‘I do what’s best for us’ and it allows the United States to use Israel as a convenient scapegoat when they want to.”
He said the real issue is “what’s happening behind the scenes.” Israel is already clearing the rubble to build “essentially militarized ghettoes” for Palestinians, he explained.
“That’s big business, billions of dollars of contracts to military contractors, and not just American companies. It’s Israeli companies, but also other corrupt monarchy regimes … that have joined this, quote unquote, Board of Peace.”
Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, a Palestinian Arab American and co-founder of the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance, agreed that Mr. Trump’s response was not surprising.
“The Zionist Alliance is not only Israel and the Israel lobby, mainly AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), but also it is made up of the White nationalists, the Christian Zionists, the, Jewish establishment, including organizations like the ADL (Anti-Defamation League),
All of whom collaborate with the Republican Party, the Trump administration, but also with leadership of the Democratic Party establishment,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s’ the state of our country.”
Coordinated, illegal measures
Critics have blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into the Iran war and for the collapse of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a 14-point plan signed by the U.S. and Iran as a framework for peace. Point 1 called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, which Mr. Netanyahu has vowed not to do.
As Mr. Trump struggles to reach an agreement with Iran to reopen vital shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz (see related story on page 3), Israel and other issues rise for his attention.
Civilians are still being slaughtered in Gaza, settler violence with government collusion in the West Bank is escalating, fighting in Lebanon continues, a new military pact among regional Muslim countries has been formed, other nations are entering the fighting—all of which do not bode well for peace.
The Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) reports that in one week—July 28 through Aug. 3—Israelis killed 45 Palestinians and wounded 21 in the Gaza Strip and wounded 21 in the West Bank. The total number of Palestinians killed between October 7, 2023, and August 3, 2026, reached 74,526, with 179,198 injured, the OIC reported.
The UN recently issued condemnation of Israel over its support of settler violence in the West Bank.
“What we are witnessing is a clear pattern of coordinated, illegal measures designed to entrench the occupation and alter the demographic and territorial realities on the ground and undermine the prospects of a Palestinian state,” said Pakistan’s permanent UN representative Asim Iftikhar Ahmad during an Aug. 11 UN Security Council meeting.
“The expansion of settlements in the Crimson Thread project and the settlement activities in the heart of the West Bank are all part of a broader effort to fragment the Palestinian territory. This is accompanied by unprecedented settler violence,” he said.
The Crimson Thread is a separation wall inside the occupied West Bank designed to permanently sever the fertile Jordan Valley from the rest of Palestinian territory.
Settler violence in the West Bank has resulted in the destruction and/or occupation of Palestinian homes, theft of livestock, burning of trees and farm products, and physical violence against men, women and children. The violence often is accompanied by Israeli Defense Forces who often stand by or participate.
In an op-ed written by Fadi Zatari, published July 30, on the website of the Turkish publication Anadolu Agency, titled, “The West Bank: A quiet genocide,” he writes on the ongoing atrocities being perpetrated by illegal settlers and the IDF.
“The reality in the West Bank indicates a pattern of integration and complementarity between individual Israeli settler terror and Israeli army and state policy. Israeli settlers attack Palestinians ruthlessly, destroy their herds, and even burn their trees.
It is often the case that after the settlers’ assaults and terrorism against Palestinians, the Israeli army continues with extensive punitive measures against Palestinian communities, such as shootings, killings, arrests, sieges, and closures of cities and villages,” he writes.
Israeli Christians attacked
Father Bashar Fawadleh from the West Bank village of Taybeh told the Vatican News that Israeli settlers are creating a “climate of fear” for Palestine’s last entirely Christian village. The Catholic priest said Taybeh stands on the front lines of “preserving Christianity here in the Holy Land,” describing the village as a place Jesus chose to seek refuge before “his passion, death and resurrection.”
“It is a deliberate strategy of harassment designed to create a climate of fear and [to] pressure Palestinian families into leaving their land. The Israeli settlers come to cause harm and occupy the land,” he added.
The idea of Israeli expansion—or establishing a “Greater Israel” that annexes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other regional countries—is a goal expressed by Mr. Netanyahu.
A group of settlers who want to establish settlements inside Syria have been crossing into the neighboring nation only to be chased out by Israeli military that has occupied Southern Syria for more than a year.
Amos Azaria of the Pioneers of Bashan settler group told the Associated Press, “The entire Daraa district … must be cleared of the enemies seeking our destruction and instead be filled with Jewish settlement.” Bashan is a biblical region that includes parts of Syria and Jordan.
Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan recently announced a Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a pact similar to NATO’s where an attack on one member is viewed as an attack on all. The countries stressed the pact is not targeted at any country and doesn’t replace any existing arrangements.
Some have speculated that the arrangement is a result of Gulf nations realizing the inability of U.S. military to defend them and to discourage any aggression by Iran as the emerging power in the region.
In response, Iran officials mostly focused on the decline of America’s role in the Gulf region and the need for Muslim cooperation. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said when Muslims stand together, “we can face every challenge by malicious outsiders head-on.”
“Time to rely only on ourselves and embrace true brotherhood,” he wrote on X.
An Israeli official said the defense arrangement was against them. “This alliance is aimed against Israel. Who do you think they are doing this against? Allow me to be skeptical when they say it is really aimed at Iran,” the official told Yeshiva World News.
