“It’s time for total victory,” crowed Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu’s far-right national security minister, in an address to the Knesset on Wednesday, adding that he was confident Trump would see “eye to eye” with Israel on “all sorts of laws” that he has been trying to push through, including the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism. Israel Ganz, head of a council representing Israeli settlers across the occupied West Bank, celebrated the moment as a historic “opportunity for the settlement movement,” which has already made significant gainssince Netanyahu returned to power in 2022…..
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But while Trump could allow Israel to go after Tehran more aggressively, analysts said, he could also insist that Netanyahu “end the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon by the time he is sworn in on January 20,” Nadav Tamir, a former Israeli diplomat and now executive director of the J Street lobbying group in Washington, wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday. Such a push could deepen Israel’s strategic quagmire, Tamir wrote, because “unlike a democratic government, he is not working to create a diplomatic alternative to replace Hezbollah and Hamas.
”Trump’s vision for the Middle East remains an open question. On the campaign trail he backed Israel’s right to self-defense while courtingArab and Muslim voters disenchanted with the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. He has a strong working relationship with the Saudi royal family, which Israel has long hoped will agree to a normalization pact, but Riyadh is now demanding a declared path to Palestinian statehood as part of the price. In his victory speech overnight Tuesday, as Israeli forces besieged one of northern Gaza’s last remaining hospitals and launched airstrikes across eastern Lebanon, Trump vowed he was “going to stop wars.”
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“The difference between a Trump and Harris administration is that Harris has kind of a principled commitment to Israel, and everything is subordinate to that,” he said. “Whereas for Trump he couldn’t care less about Israel and the Palestinians or anything or anyone else, provided it serves his interests.”
For Netanyahu, who critics have long contended is driven by similar sense of self-interest, Trump’s victory is a personal triumph as well, according to Talshir, the political scientist.
“The orbit of populist leaders that Netanyahu and Trump belong to and lead together,” she said, and are “trying to take liberal democracies to their authoritarian ends.”…
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Israel keeps pounding Lebanon….
Several large airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early Thursday, including one on a site adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport. The Israeli military had issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying Hezbollah facilities were there, without giving more details.
Also Thursday, the Israeli military announced it expanded its month-old ground operation in northern Gaza to include part of Beit Lahiya, a town that has been heavily bombed since the earliest days of the war and where Israel says Hamas militants have regrouped.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech aired Wednesday that the Lebanese militant group is open for cease-fire negotiations only once “the enemy stops its aggression.” His speech marked the 40-day mourning period since former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Since the conflict erupted, more than 3,100 people have been killedand some 13,800 wounded in Lebanon, the health ministry reported…..
Israel and the UN Food Effort…
The top U.N. humanitarian official for Gaza has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss implementing a U.N. resolution adopted last year that demands Israel allow unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Sigrid Kaag “raised measures that require urgent implementation to address the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza and underlined the U.N.’s position regarding UNRWA,” U.N. associate spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay said Thursday.
The U.N. calls the agency a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza by providing health care, education and social support….
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Israel’s parliament voted on Oct. 28 to ban UNRWA, with the legislation taking effect in 90 days….
Update…..
Hezbollah -Israeli fight in Lebanon….
Nov 7, 2024 – ISW Press
Hezbollah executed a prepared but limited defense of Khiam in southeastern Lebanon against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from October 28 to 31. Hezbollah’s Operations Room claimed that the group prevented an Israeli force from seizing and controlling terrain in Khiam by executing a “fire defense,“ which likely refers to a prepared but limited defense that involved pre-registering targets for indirect fire while committing only a small amount of infantry.
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