Trump’s people trying to salvage a plan to remove Palestinans from Gaza get NO Love from other counties, while Israel says it would accomnidate such a move of people….
No country has stepped up to receive anyone sent from Gaza….
The hand over of the latest 3 Israeli hostage’s was a Hamas event, designed to show their stregth, and embrase Israel, And US President Trump…
Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners…
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan, which could enable a large segment of Gaza’s population to relocate to various destinations around the world,” Katz said in a statement.
The Israeli plan would allow Gaza residents to depart for “any country willing to receive them,” via land crossings or through “special arrangements for departure by sea and air,” he said. Palestinians in Gaza have mostly not been able to leave the enclave since the war began in October 2023, with some exceptions such as limited medical evacuations.
Katz cited Spain, Ireland and Norway — governments that have criticized Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and which are unlikely to agree to cooperate with Trump’s proposal — as places that could take in Palestinians.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in response: “No one should enter into a debate about where the Palestinians, and in particular Gazan Palestinians, should go. The land of the Gazan Palestinians is Gaza.”
The White House has since tried to temper parts of Trump’s declaration, which drew condemnation from U.S. foes and allies alike.
Here’s what else to know
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Senators from both parties in Washington Thursday, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York).
- U.N. Secretary General António Guterres denounced “any form of ethnic cleansing” in Gaza in remarks Wednesday on Palestinian rights that did not directly mention Trump’s proposal. “In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse,” he said.
- Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that Israel had withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council, after a similar decision this week by the United States. Netanyahu has accused the council, which promotes human rights and monitors abuses, of having a “blatant anti-Israel obsession.”
- An Israeli reserve soldier has been sentenced to seven months in prison for abusing detainees at a notorious Israeli facility holding Palestinians from Gaza, the Israeli military saidThursday. The soldier, Israel Hajbi, was found guilty of beating blindfolded and handcuffed detainees at the Sde Teiman base using his fists and weapons in several incidents. A number of reservists were detained last summer over allegations of abuse, after months of international pressure and domestic legal scrutiny of the detention center’s conditions….
Hamas hostage release show….
Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel, in a staged handover where rifle-toting Hamas fighters prodded their gaunt captives to give short speeches, effectively at gunpoint, thanking the militants who had held them captive for 16 months.
The events made an already tenuous cease-fire more fragile, possibly endangering the next steps in the truce agreement. Israel is scheduled to pull back from part of Gaza on Sunday to allow Palestinians there to move more freely, but has threatened to take unspecified action in response to what it says are Hamas violations of the cease-fire.
And talks on the second phase of the truce deal are supposed to be advancing now, amid deep consternation in the Arab world over President Trump’s proposal to move the more than two million Gazans out of the enclave and have the United States take over the territory.
For Hamas, the heavily choreographed hostage handover reinforced the group’s message that, despite a devastating war in the Gaza Strip that killed thousands of its members and much of its leadership, the group remains in power there, defying Israeli leaders’ vow to wipe it out….
Rebuilding Gaza….
Logistics and POLITICS….
How long reconstruction may take is another issue. While some experts have suggested several decades, the reality is that it entirely depends on political conditions.
After the second world war, German cities – with the benefit of the Marshall plan – were reconstructed in about a decade, although some rebuilding continued until the 1990s.
With a quarter of all structures in Gaza destroyed or severely damaged – including schools and hospitals – and 66% of buildings sustaining at least some damage, the first issue will be to survey what is salvageable and identify the potentially 1 million people in need of long-term shelter and support.
Setting aside Trump’s calls to permanently displace Palestinians from Gaza, one risk in reconstruction – experienced in London’s East End after the blitz – is the social damage that can be done in moving communities with close social networks.
One successful UN innovation in Jordan’s refugee camps during the Syrian civil war was the deployment of mobile shelters, which residents were allowed to reposition to preserve communities and social structures.
In many ways, however, housing may not be the most serious issue. Gaza’s water and sanitation system – on the brink of failure even before the onset of the war – has collapsed. It is estimated that up to 70% of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in north Gaza have sustained damage.
In Gaza City, damage to those same facilities exceeds 90% including to the desalination plants in a coastal strip where residents rely on electric pumps to supply roof tanks and where the power system is also badly damaged.
Beyond the physical infrastructure there is other, less obvious, damage. More than half of Gaza’s critical agricultural land has been degraded by conflict and 95% of cattle have been slaughtered along with nearly half the sheep.
That suggests something like a Marshall plan will be required….
Hamas released three male Israeli hostages on February 8. Hamas gave the hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Israel, in exchange, released 183 Palestinian prisoners, including 111 whom the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detained in the Gaza Strip during the October 7 War.
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