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Israeli government to call up 50,000 more reservists: Report
According to Israel’s Ynet news site, the government is expected to approve a decision to summon an additional 50,000 reservist soldiers today, increasing their total ranks to 350,000.
The move comes amid heightened tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where Netanyahu says Israel is ready to take “extremely powerful action”.
Israel transferring prisoners out of notorious military-run detention camp
Israel’s military is winding down operations at the Sde Teiman detention camp, which has been dogged by allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners, according to Israeli justice officials.
State lawyers, responding to a petition filed by an Israeli rights group, said 1,200 prisoners in the camp have already been transferred out, leaving just 200 inmates there.
The reduced numbers will help officials improve conditions at the camp, whose ultimate future has yet to be decided, they say.
Inmates of Sde Teiman, located in the Negev desert, have experienced harrowing abuse, according to whistleblowers, including routine beatings, forced stress positions and amputations due to handcuff injuries.
Hamas denounces far-right Israeli march through Jerusalem
Later today, a “Flag March” of thousands of far-right extremist Israelis will take place in occupied Jerusalem, commemorating “Jerusalem Day”, an Israeli public holiday that marks the day that Israel gained full control over Jerusalem in 1967.
The route takes marchers through the Damascus Gate and the city’s Muslim Quarter, past Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“The march of flags in occupied Jerusalem is an aggression against our peoples and holy sites”, a statement from Hamas says.
This “Flag March” in past years has prompted calls from both inside Israel and the international community for a change of route, due to the violence that often accompanies it.
The march is expected to commence in the early afternoon, local time.
Rescuers find six more killed, eight wounded near Deir el-Balah
Injured Palestinians are continuing to be rescued from neighbourhoods in central Gaza that have been under fierce attack.
In one of its latest missions, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) recovered the bodies of six Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardment and an additional eight wounded in the Ja’frawi neighbourhood, east of Deir el-Balah.
A video posted by the group shows its members rushing the victims to a hospital at dawn.
Thirty-five people arrested in Hebron: Report
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli forces have rounded up 35 people in the town of Beit Ummar, 11km (6.8 miles) northwest of Hebron, where we earlier reported an Israeli army campaign was under way.
The arrests come during a familiar wave of raids across the occupied West Bank, with Israeli forces also moving into areas near Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Jericho.
Israeli forces bulldoze farmland in Kafr Dan raid
Israel’s military bulldozed Palestinian-owned agricultural land and damaged infrastructure during a raid on the village of Kafr Dan, in the illegally occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency is reporting.
The latest destruction comes as the World Food Programme reported in February that an estimated 600,000 Palestinians are experiencing food insecurity in the occupied West Bank, amid escalating Israeli military and settler violence, arbitrary arrests, and movement restrictions on the local population since October.
Protests in Israel demanding captive release deal: Report
Israeli protesters have again taken to the streets to urge the government to strike a deal with Hamas that would see the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza, as PM Netanyahu grapples with a ceasefire proposal opposed by his right-wing allies.
According to The Times of Israel, crowds of demonstrators have blocked major intersections in Tel Aviv and several other towns in northern Israel carrying the message.
There are about 120 captives still believed to be in Gaza, one-third of whom have been declared dead.
US says still waiting on Hamas response to ceasefire proposal as Israel sends mixed signals
The US is still “waiting for a response from Hamas” to be relayed through Qatari mediators on the Gaza ceasefire proposal, White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan has told reporters.
CIA Director Bill Burns will be in Doha to meet with Qatari mediators about the proposal, Sullivan said in a news conference on Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden put forward on Friday what he claimed to be an Israel-backed three-stage plan that would see an initial six-week ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas of Gaza, followed by the release of captives from Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, leading to a permanent ceasefire and the Palestinian enclave’s reconstruction.
Israeli officials have provided mixed messages about the deal, however, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying Israel is still committed to the “elimination” of Hamas.
Far-right members of the government have also threatened to withdraw from Netanyahu’s coalition if it accepts the ceasefire.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Tuesday that the group “cannot agree to an agreement that does not secure a final ceasefire”.
EU’s Borrell urges Israel, Hamas to accept ‘three-phase’ ceasefire proposal
The European Union fully supports the “comprehensive roadmap” announced by US President Joe Biden that would lead to an “enduring ceasefire in Gaza”, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“Too many civilian lives have been lost. An enduring ceasefire is urgently needed,” Borrell said in a statement, adding that a ceasefire would ensure the protection of civilians, the release of captives held in Gaza, and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.
“The EU urges both parties to accept and fulfil the three-phase proposal and stands ready to contribute to reviving a political process for a lasting and sustainable peace, based on the two-state solution, and to support a coordinated international effort to rebuild Gaza,” he said.
Columbia Law Review website shut down over article critical of Israel
The board of the Columbia Law Review journal – made up of faculty and alumni from the university’s law school – shut down the review’s website on Monday after editors refused to halt publication of an academic article by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that was critical of Israel.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency reports that the student editors of the journal say they were pressured by the board to not publish the article which accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza and implementing an apartheid regime against Palestinians.
The review’s website was taken down after the article was published on Monday morning and remained offline on Tuesday evening, a static homepage informing visitors the domain “is under maintenance”.
Several editors at the Columbia Law Review described the board’s intervention as an unprecedented breach of editorial independence at the periodical.
In a letter sent to student editors Tuesday, the board of directors said it was concerned that the article, titled “Nakba as a Legal Concept,” had not gone through the “usual processes of review or selection for articles”. The editor involved in soliciting and editing the piece said they had followed a rigorous review process.
The author of the article Rabea Eghbariah, a Harvard doctoral candidate, said the suspension of the journal’s website should be seen as “a microcosm of a broader authoritarian repression taking place across US campuses”.
Italian university suspends Erasmus agreements with Israeli universities
The University of Palermo in Italy has suspended its Erasmus exchange agreements with several Israeli universities, citing safety concerns.
A university statement blamed the “lack of essential security guarantees to which those involved in the cooperation partnerships would be exposed in this particular and delicate moment of international crisis”.
The university also said that it was looking into research relations and creating “ad hoc regulation on dual use [technology], which should be finalised by the summer break”.
Israeli military carries out arrests and raids in the occupied West Bank
The Israeli military has stormed the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and the nearby town of Kafr Dan to its west, where they have arrested three Palestinians, the Wafa news agency reports.
Israeli forces have also stormed the town Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, and are carrying out an “arrest campaign”, according to local media. One man has been confirmed as having been detained so far.
Raids and incidents have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. They include:
Israeli forces have closed the Beit Furik checkpoint, east of Nablus.
Israeli forces have stormed the town of Kafr Malek, east of Ramallah.
A group of Israelis have stormed the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem and an area near the Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform religious rituals.
US lawmakers approve bill to sanction ICC over war crimes warrant for Israeli leaders
This is the first of several steps that would need to occur before these sanctions actually become law.
But this is significant that the US House of Representatives, that has long toyed with this idea, has now made good on that threat.
With a vote of 247 to 155, they passed this measure that proposes sanctions against the ICC judges and staff members – and their family members – and involves anyone who is prosecuting American citizens or citizens of US allies that are not party to the ICC [International Criminal Court].
If you read between the lines there, it is clearly Israel.
This is something that was touted around by Republicans right after we saw the ICC’s chief prosecutor try to get arrest warrants against the Israeli leader. So it is something that we had seen long coming.
But today’s vote had 42 democrats joining their Republican colleagues in approving this measure, which is also significant given that this is pushing back against the White House that just yesterday said that it strongly opposes this measure.
President Biden said that though he also had deep concerns about the seeking of arrest warrants for Netanyahu, he said that this measure to sanction the ICC was going too far. He said that he strongly opposed it and that there were more effective ways to defend Israel.
This is the first of several steps. But it is a significant one and delivers a message that has bi-partisan support.
US President Joe Biden has said “it’s uncertain” when asked in an interview with TIME magazine whether he’s seen evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
The Israeli military’s chief of staff has said they are “ready for an offensive” on the Israel-Lebanon border, while the Lebanese group Hezbollah has warned that an expansion of the war into Lebanon will be “met with devastation, destruction and displacement in Israel”.
Fighting rocks Gaza as major powers push for truce
GAZA (AFP) - Heavy fighting rocked Gaza on Tuesday (Jun 4) after G7 and Arab powers urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden.
Mediator Qatar said it had yet to see statements from either side "that give us a lot of confidence", but the foreign ministry said Doha was "working with both sides on proposals on the table".
