[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Israeli air strikes kill 25 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli air strikes kill 25 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 21 April, 2025, 00:00

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.

Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.

‘Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,’ Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency said.

In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.

‘We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,’ Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.

Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.

The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

During that attack, Palestinian militants abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

‘Frustrated’ by pace of Gaza ceasefire talks

Qatar’s chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.

www.thedailystar.net

‘Frustrated’ by pace of Gaza ceasefire talks
Says Qatar’s chief negotiator as another round of negotiations ended without a deal

Qatar's chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.

"We're definitely frustrated by the slowness, sometimes, of the process in the negotiation. This is an urgent matter. There are lives at stake here if this military operation continues day by day," Mohammed Al-Khulaifi said on Friday.

Late on Thursday, Hamas signalled the group would not accept Israel's newest proposal for a 45-day ceasefire. Israel had wanted the release of 10 living hostages held by the Palestinian group, the group said.

"We've been working continuously in the last days to try to bring the parties together and revive the agreement that has been endorsed by the two sides," the Qatari minister of state said.

"And we will remain committed to this, in spite of the difficulties," he added.

During the long mediation process, Qatar has been the target of direct criticism from Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least two of Netanyahu's aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha's interests in Israel, prompting an Israeli criminal probe. Qatar has dismissed the attacks as a "smear campaign".

Earlier in March, an investigation by Israel's domestic security agency attributed funds from the Gulf state to an increase in Hamas's military strength before the October 7 attack. Qatar has rebuffed the accusation as "false".

"We've been receiving those types of criticism and negative comments since the early times of our involvement," Al-Khulaifi said.

"Critiques without any context, such as the ones that we keep hearing from Netanyahu himself, are often just noise," he added.

Al-Khulaifi rejected recent remarks from Netanyahu to the US-based evangelical Christian channel Daystar that Qatar had promoted "anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism" on US college campuses.

"His claims about Qatar's educational partnerships have been repeatedly disproven. Everything we do is transparent," the Qatari official added.

Qatar, with Al-Khulaifi as its lead negotiator, has emerged as a facilitator in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has flared in recent months, with the armed M23 group making a series of rapid gains in the country's resource-rich east.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say seven killed in Israeli air strikes

Four people were killed in the Al-Rimal area near Gaza City, two in Al-Sabra west of Gaza City and one in Khan Yunis.

en.prothomalo.com

Gaza rescuers say seven killed in Israeli air strikes
AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Published: 22 Apr 2025, 08: 37

A Palestinian man carries away an injured child from a home that was hit in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on 7 November, 2024. Israel's military has been conducting a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza since 6 October, 2024, particularly around Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, saying it aims to prevent Hamas regrouping. AFP

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Tuesday that seven people were killed in fresh Israeli air strikes across the Hamas-run territory.

“The occupation launched violent air strikes on Gaza City and the towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Khan Yunis, killing seven civilians,” civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

Four people were killed in the Al-Rimal area near Gaza City, two in Al-Sabra west of Gaza City and one in Khan Yunis.

“The occupation also destroyed more than 10 homes east of Gaza City and in Rafah,” he added.

The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

At least 1,691 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,065, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas’s attack on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israeli strikes kill 26

A Hamas delegation left for Cairo to discuss ‘new ideas’ aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.

www.newagebd.net

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israeli strikes kill 26
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 23 April, 2025, 03:24

A Hamas delegation left for Cairo to discuss ‘new ideas’ aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.

The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.

Talks have so far failed to produce any breakthrough since Israel resumed its air and ground assault on Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

‘The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss new ideas aimed at reaching a ceasefire,’ the Hamas official said, adding the team included the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.

The discussions will come a day after newly appointed US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged Hamas to accept a deal that would secure the release of hostages in exchange for humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

‘When that happens, and hostages are released which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that the humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely knowing it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people’, Huckabee said in a video statement.

Israel blocked all aid to Gaza on March 2, days before its renewed offensive began.

Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.

‘Gaza has become a land of desperation,’ Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X on Tuesday.

‘Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade. Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war.’

Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside exchanges of hostages and prisoners.

But the truce collapsed after disagreements over the terms of the next stage.

Hamas had insisted that negotiations be held on a second phase of the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework announced by former US president Joe Biden.

Israel, however, sought to extend the first phase.

Following the impasse, Israel blocked aid and resumed its military campaign.

Most recently, Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages — an offer Hamas rejected last week.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes killed at least 26 people across the Hamas-run territory on Tuesday.

Among the fatalities were nine people when a house was struck in central Khan Yunis, senior agency official Mohammad Mughayyir said, adding that six others remain trapped.

‘We found people torn apart,’ said Ahmad Shourab who witnessed the strike. ‘They were all women and children. What do they want from us?’

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said air strikes also destroyed bulldozers and other equipment belonging to the Jabalia municipality in northern Gaza.

‘We relied on them for rescue operations to clear debris and recover the bodies of martyrs from beneath the rubble,’ Bassal said.

‘Now, if a large-scale strike occurs and heavy machinery is needed, how will we obtain the equipment to save lives, pull people from the rubble, or evacuate them from buildings targeted in attacks?’

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.

At least 1,890 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which ignited the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza school, hospital

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children’s hospital, local health authorities said, taking yesterday’s death toll to 20.

www.thedailystar.net

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza school, hospital
20 Palestinians killed; President Abbas calls on Hamas to hand over arms to his authority

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health authorities said, taking yesterday's death toll to 20.

Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms. There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.

Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings.

"The European Union is not giving up on our closest, deepest and most important partnership with the United States."
— EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis

"We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire," said eyewitness, Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.

"People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred (people), charred children, and were walking and saying: 'Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.' What can we say? Dear God, only," she told Reuters.

Medics said at least 10 other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the enclave.

Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a televised speech yesterday, called on Hamas to cede its responsibility over the Gaza Strip, hand over its arms to the Palestinian Authority and turn itself into a political party.

Yesterday, the Gaza health ministry said an Israeli missile also hit the upper building of the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No one was killed in the hospital strike.

Gaza's healthcare system is close to collapse due to an Israeli blockade on all supplies to Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March, when it relaunched military operations.

The health ministry said many Palestinian victims of Israeli military strikes remained trapped under rubble and on the roads, as rescue teams are unable to reach them because of ongoing bombardments.

The attacks have also hit dozens of bulldozers and machinery used to clear roads, remove debris and to carry out rescue operations.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had hit 40 "engineering vehicles" that were used for "terrorist actions. Some of those heavy vehicles were parked on the road and others inside the garages of municipalities.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 36 in Gaza

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 36 people on Thursday, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes kill 36 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 24 April, 2025, 23:38

Children queue to receive charity meals from a kitchen in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday. | AFP photo

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 36 people on Thursday, including a family of six whose home was struck in Gaza City.

Israel resumed its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on March 18, following the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded Palestinian territory.

Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.

Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative of the family, said the strike came as the family was sleeping.

‘What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,’ he said.

Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were brought.

‘The bombing was extremely intense and it shook the entire area,’ said Abdel Qader Sabah, 23, from Jabalia.

‘Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing.’

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas ‘command and control centre’ in the Jabalia area but did not specify whether the target was the police station.

‘The command and control centre was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,’ it said in a statement.

Elsewhere, 21 people were killed in a series of strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported, including several in the southern area of Khan Yunis.

‘We were sitting in peace when the missile fell,’ said Mohammed Faris, who witnessed a strike on the house in Khan Yunis. ‘I just don’t understand what’s happening.’

Bodies lay on the ground, including those of a young woman and a boy in body bags, surrounded by grieving relatives kissing and stroking their faces, AFP footage showed.

‘One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,’ said Rania al-Jumla, who lost her sister in another air strike in Khan Yunis.

‘We have had enough. Every day there’s death, every day we lose someone dear to us.’

Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The war was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

During the attack, militants also abducted 251 people and took them to Gaza. Of those, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 the military says are dead.

Israeli officials maintain that the on-going military campaign is essential to securing the release of the remaining hostages.

However, many families of the captives, along with thousands of protesters, have strongly criticised the authorities for pressing ahead with the offensive rather than striking a deal.​

 

[Saif]

UN food agency says its food stocks in Gaza run out

The World Food Program says its food stocks in the Gaza Strip have run out under Israel's nearly 8-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory. The WFP said in a statement that it delivered the last of its stocks to charity

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

UN food agency says its food stocks in Gaza run out
AP
Published :
Apr 25, 2025 21:59
Updated :
Apr 25, 2025 21:59

The World Food Program says its food stocks in the Gaza Strip have run out under Israel's nearly 8-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.

The WFP said in a statement that it delivered the last of its stocks to charity kitchens that it supports around Gaza. It said those kitchens are expected to run out of food in the coming days, reports AP.

Some 80 per cent of Gaza's population of more than 2 million relies primarily on charity kitchens for food, because other sources have shut down under Israel's blockade, according to the UN.

The WFP has been supporting 47 kitchens that distribute 644,000 hot meals a day, said WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa.

It was not immediately clear how many kitchens would still be operating in Gaza if those shut down. But Etefa said the WFP-backed kitchens are the major ones in Gaza.

Israel cut off entry of all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza on March 2 and then resumed its bombardment and ground offensives two weeks later, shattering a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.

It says the moves aim to pressure Hamas to release hostages it still holds. Rights groups have called the blockade a "starvation tactic" and a potential war crime.

Israel has said Gaza has enough supplies after a surge of aid entered during the ceasefire and accuses Hamas of diverting aid for its purposes. Humanitarian workers deny there is significant diversion, saying the UN strictly monitors distribution.

They say the aid flow during the ceasefire was barely enough to cover the immense needs from throughout the war when only a trickle of supplies got in.

With no new goods entering Gaza, many foods have disappeared from markets, including meat, eggs, fruits, dairy products and many vegetables. Prices for what remains have risen dramatically, becoming unaffordable for much of the population. Most families rely heavily on canned goods.
​

 

[Saif]

Israeli fire kills at least 44 people in Gaza, hits a police station

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel's military said it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups

www.thedailystar.net

Israeli fire kills at least 44 people in Gaza, hits a police station

Palestinians inspect damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 25, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Hatem Khaled

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel's military said it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.

Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.

The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident, that it attacked a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which militants used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.

It accused Palestinian militant groups of exploiting civilians and civil properties for military purposes, an allegation Hamas and other factions deny.

Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday's death toll to 44.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City had become non-operational, a day after an Israeli strike hit the upper part of the building, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the facility's solar power panel system.

No one was killed. There was no Israeli comment on the incident.

Israel's military said on Thursday that one soldier was killed during combat in the northern Gaza Strip, while an officer and a reservist were severely injured.

Gaza's health system has been devastated by Israel's 18-month-old military campaign, launched in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, putting many of the territory's hospitals out of action, killing medics, and reducing crucial supplies.

Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.

Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to reconcile disputes between the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas.

The attack on Israel by Hamas in October 2023 killed 1,200 people, and 251 hostages were taken to Gaza. Since then, more than 51,300 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to health officials.​

 

[Saif]

‘Israel's main mission is not combating terrorism, but destroying Gaza’

Both the US and Israel massively spy on each other.

www.thedailystar.net

‘Israel's main mission is not combating terrorism, but destroying Gaza’

VISUAL: STAR

As the genocide in Gaza continues, Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist, film-maker, and best-selling author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World, speaks to Priyam Paul of The Daily Star debunking how Israel's surveillance technology, the military-industrial complex, and global dynamics perpetuate the suffering of Palestinians.

What experiences shaped your interest in writing your book?

I am a Jewish Australian-German. I was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1974, and brought up in a relatively liberal Jewish home. However, believing and supporting Israel was pretty much a part of the regular, daily discourse. It was not rammed down my throat, but it was pretty standard for many Jewish people to support Israel, because of our own history. For instance, my own family came from Germany and Austria. Majority of my family members were killed in the Holocaust; the ones who escaped, mostly in 1939, were spread around the world, including Australia. Therefore, the idea of a so-called safe-haven for Jews—as we were told—was Israel, which made sense to me when I was a child.

Of course, what I was not told while growing up was that there were millions of Palestinians who have been under occupation for decades, and they are suffering because of that safe haven and supposed Jewish liberation. When I discovered the truth myself, it really made me deeply uncomfortable since I was a teenager and it continues to unnerve me to this day.

Why and how have the military-industrial complexes of both Israel and the US become so deeply intertwined, and in what ways have they operated similarly over the years, particularly to perpetuate the occupation and systemic erasure of the Palestinian people?

The US is Israel's biggest funder, armour, political supporter, diplomatic backer, and ally. This has been the reality since 1948, when Israel was established. It massively accelerated after 1967 when Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and it has been the case long before Donald Trump became president again earlier this year.

Huge amounts of weapons that Israel uses are often tested and trialled in the US first. When the US is giving billions of dollars of so-called aid and military support every year to Israel, a significant amount of that money goes to certain districts in the US to back specific weapons or defence programmes. It is also worth mentioning that although the US-Israel relationship is very close, it is dysfunctional. Both nations massively spy on each other. We are not aware of the exact number of spies that both nations use on the other, but there is a desire on both sides to get the most accurate insider information about each other. So, the two nations are supposedly best of friends, but they also don't completely trust each other.

In your book, you wrote, "Israeli history can be split into two eras: before and after 1967." Could you elaborate on the implications of the Six Day War for Israeli policy and explain what led to such a drastic historical and political shift?

After 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, and there was a perceived need within Israel to justify and defend those military actions and what became a brutal military occupation against the occupied Palestinians who lived there. Although Israel, for years before 1967, had used Palestine as a laboratory, it massively expanded after that. From the late 1960s, but certainly into the 1970s and pretty much to this day, roughly 50 or so years later, Israel often uses the occupied Palestinian territories as a way to prove to other countries how effective they are at suppressing Palestinian dissent or their self-determination.

A large number of other countries, military figures, police forces from the US, along with parts of Europe and Asia, often travel to Israel to observe firsthand the reality of what the occupation means for Palestinians and then take back that experience and knowledge, often to develop defence relationships and contracts relevant to their own conflicts. The previous repressive administration in Bangladesh also sought Israeli tech to spy on dissidents of the state.

To what extent has the world changed with Israel's global reach in surveillance—through arms sales, mobile tracking technologies, and its influence over social media platforms where Palestinian content is often censored?

Israeli technology has massively influenced surveillance around the world, although there are obviously other countries that produce surveillance technology, including the US, China, and many countries in Europe. Israel is a global leader in surveillance technology and possibly among the top one or two biggest providers of surveillance worldwide.

The most prominent of these technologies often comes from the software company NSO Group and its tool, Pegasus. However, there are others, such as Paragon. They are sold to various governments, dictatorships, democracies, police forces, and intelligence services.

We are told that they are used to fight "terrorism and crime," but actually they are often used by those states with clearly the knowledge of both NSO Group and the Israeli government, to go after dissidents, critics, and human rights activists. And one of the ways that Israel—particularly since Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister many years ago—has been using these weapons and surveillance technologies is as a diplomatic tool.

It is a way for Israel to make so-called friends. Israel says to a country, that we will sell this incredibly powerful spyware that will enable you to monitor your dissidents and people you don't like, but in return, we would like you to do certain things for us. For example, voting in a certain way in the United Nations or supporting Israel in some other way.

How do you evaluate the events of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel's ongoing large-scale assault on Gaza?

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in many ways, should have revealed to the world that Israel's surveillance and military tech has failed miserably. From the Israeli perspective, more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and all their defences disappeared. Hamas was able to overwhelm Israel's defences.

However, the reality is that many of the same companies that had been used by Israel before October 7, 2023 to provide apparent defence to Israel from Gaza and Hamas are now some of the key players in Israel's genocide in Gaza. I am talking about Elbert, Israel's biggest defence company, and others. They are using, leveraging, and testing massive amounts of weapons in Gaza. One of the most prominent examples of this testing includes killer drones, so-called quadcopters, artificial intelligence (AI), which did exist and was used before October 7 as well.

However, Israel has massively increased the use of this AI warfare in Gaza after the Hamas attack. So, a huge number of Palestinian civilians who have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 have been chosen by the so-called AI warfare tech with barely, if any, human oversight. This is because Israel's main mission in Gaza has never been about destroying Hamas or going after terrorism. Rather, it has been about destroying Gaza and making it unliveable.

What role can the global public opinion play in addressing the long-term Palestinian cause, especially when international pressure often fails to bring about meaningful change?

The two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is over and dead, and arguably was never going to happen. Because for decades, the Israeli politicians—and I would say many, if not most, of the Israeli Jewish public—have shown little interest in giving up the occupied territories that they control. The Israeli settler movement, which is not the majority of the Israeli public but certainly the most politically powerful, has essentially taken over the state. There is no political pressure within Israel for a two-state solution, and there is frankly no international pressure either.

The US, even before Donald Trump, essentially was allowing and supporting Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond. The Europeans are mostly distracted with their own issues, with Ukraine and now Trump. The Arab countries talk about a two-state solution, but they are mostly keen on maintaining good relations outrageously and shamefully with Israel and the US. So, what I fear is that, in the short to medium terms, we are going to see what kind of already exists, which is a one-state apartheid system, where Israelis have full rights, while Palestinians remain second class citizens.

Antony Loewenstein's book The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World is set to be translated into Bangla and re-published soon.​