Hamas

Thursday

Brendan O’Neill

What’s the real reason so many people hate Israel?

Did you know that for the past three weeks Turkey has been engaged in a military assault on Iraqi Kurdistan? It’s been brutal. The Turks, who have one of the most powerful military forces on Earth, have used F-16s, F-4 Terminators and other terrifying hi-tech weaponry to pummel Kurdish positions in northern Iraq. Families have fled their homes in terror. Livelihoods have been destroyed.  ‘Every day, every night… we are being bombed. Our lands are being destroyed. We cannot grow our crops’, says a Kurdish farmer.  It’s unclear how many people have died. According to Turkey, dozens of Kurdish people, mostly militants, apparently, have been killed or captured. Have you seen

Tuesday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Bibi is back

Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s time up? A fortnight ago, it seemed so. Netanyahu’s mandate for forming a coalition expired. The opportunity was handed instead to Yair Lapid, leader of Israel’s second largest political party Yesh Atid. Many dissatisfied Israelis started to hope: after four inconclusive elections, there was finally a chance to oust Netanyahu. But then hostilities broke out between Israel and Hamas, and reports of Netanyahu’s political death appear to be greatly exaggerated. In the weeks before this latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there was talk that Israel’s new government would be made up of an eclectic coalition that would include parties on the left, right and centre, as well as an Arab-Israeli party. Rather than relying on a common

Sunday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas’s rockets are killing Palestinians too

Israel’s military action in Gaza is widely reported daily across the world. Images of hundreds of rockets lighting up the skies over Israeli cities and of the rubble of destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are once again part of the daily cycle of print and broadcast news. But most reports are thin on details of Israel’s military activities. What exactly are their aims? How are they pursuing them? And how much success are they having? Often Israel’s military activities seem baffling to the wider world. The country’s reluctance to give a detailed, running-commentary on every strike frustrates journalists and citizens, who then assume the worst of motives for these

Saturday

Arieh Kovler

Inside Israel’s Iron Dome

A dramatic photo from the Gaza strip taken in the early hours of Friday morning looks like something out of a Marvel film. On the right, rockets fly from Gaza. The gentle trajectory of their parabolic curves shouldn’t fool anyone: these are unguided explosives travelling at hundreds of miles an hour towards an Israeli town. On the left, each one snaking a unique, winding path, interceptors from Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system shoot up to meet the missiles. In 2001, when Hamas started firing rockets from Gaza into Israel (and, at that time, the still-extant Israeli settlements in Gaza), the terrorist organisation introduced a new weapon that would change the strategic picture

Friday

Jake Wallis Simons

Revealed: How Israel tricked Hamas

I received a message from a trusted contact in Israel yesterday telling me that no ground offensive was planned in Gaza. This was despite the fact that heavy armour and infantry reservists were massing on the border. I decided to hold the story and break it in the morning. Within hours, however, the official Israeli army Twitter account had suggested to the world that ground troops had gone into action. ‘IDF (Israel Defence Force) air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip,’ it said. Nobody noted the careful ambiguity. Within minutes, the news had spread across the world. ‘Israel goes in,’ screamed the MailOnline, the world’s biggest