A key member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet, Benny Gantz, has announced his withdrawal from the country’s war government.

Gantz, a former defense minister without portfolio who entered the war cabinet shortly after the beginning of the ongoing conflict with Palestinian militant group Hamas last October, announced his resignation on Sunday citing a disagreement with Netanyahu’s policies.

“Netanyahu is preventing us from progressing towards a true victory,” he said in a statement . “For this reason we are leaving the emergency government today, with a heavy heart, yet wholeheartedly.”

Gantz also called upon Netanyahu to set a date for new elections, urging him to “not let our nation be torn apart.” 

While the departure of Gantz itself would not collapse the ruling coalition, given that his centrist Israel Resilience party holds only six seats in the Knesset, his move is bound to send a shockwave across the country’s political landscape.

Shortly after the announcement, another minister without portfolio, former IDF Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot, also resigned from the cabinet. Yechiel Tropper, a member of the Knesset, made the same announcement. 

Netanyahu took to X, formerly Twitter, to lament Gantz’s resignation, urging him not to quit the “battle,”and claiming it is actually “time to join forces” instead. The PM claimed he is ready to work with any Zionists party willing to “assist in bridging victory over our enemies.”

The disintegration of Israel’s war cabinet has coincided with the resignation of a top Israeli general in charge of Gaza operations, over the failure to stop the initial October 2023 attack by Hamas. In a letter to his superiors, the head of the IDF’s Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, said he had failed in his “life’s mission” and is quitting military service altogether. Rosenfeld is the second top officer to resign over the October 7 attack, after the IDF’s chief of military intelligence quit earlier this year.

https://www.rt.com/news/599050-benny-gantz-resigns/

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Four rescued Israels equals over two hundred dead Palestinians whilst we continue to support a rogue state

By Helen McCue 

To rescue four Israeli hostages Israel massacred two hundred and ten or more innocent Palestinian souls to prove that the War on Gaza was worth it, just to prove their machismo.

Never mind that one hostage or more were reportedly killed in the onslaught and never mind the many Palestinians wounded, estimated over 400, and never mind those buried under the rubble of this massive ground, air and sea assault. But it also shows their stupidity and arrogance when only seven hostages have been released through murderous military means, while a hundred or so have been released through negotiation.

The US of course provided intelligence and logistics for this latest massacre. Video footage on social media shows the helicopter that rescued the hostages left the US made pier in central Gaza and there are suggestions that the disguised aid truck, used as cover to enter the refugee camp also came off that pier. US murderous logistics in action. Was that why the millions of dollars was spent on building the US pier, to rescue hostages, not to provide food aid? If so it is no surprise that the US is so duplicitous. They have been involved in this war of genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza from the very beginning and it is US bombs doing the most damage and killing.

Yesterday’s attack took place in the main market area of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Deir al-Balah district of central Gaza. The wounded, among them many children, were rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The sole hospital in that area, working on one generator, is in grave danger of collapsing. The hospital is full to capacity already and social media shows men, women and children lying on the floor dying in their own blood, many with limbs blown off. Medical tents have been erected to help with the triage of the hundreds of wounded and dying. Many dead remain in the streets around where the attack took place waiting to be collected for a proper burial.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Saturday “strongly” condemned the Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, saying that the massacre of civilians is appalling and condemning it in the strongest terms calling for the “bloodbath to end immediately”. He went on to say that the “three-stage plan (put forward by Biden) is the way forward for an enduring ceasefire and to end the killing.”

While Israel may well celebrate and receive congratulations from the US and French Presidents and no doubt Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, the fact remains that key International Courts are holding Israel’s 75 year occupation of Palestine, and its brutal and vicious occupation and total destruction of Gaza to account. Israel’s two key leaders, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence have been named as war criminals by the International Criminal Court prosecutor and the International Court of Justice is undertaking an investigation into possible genocide. But while justice at the international level will come, even as Israel continues to defy their rulings, without stopping the war now more innocents will be massacred.

This attack comes on top of that on an UN school where 46 or more people, mostly women and children were massacred last week. Since 7 October 2023 and now at least 36,700 Palestinians have been killed and 83,500 injured in Gaza according to UN sources.

The World Health Organisation estimates that “at least 14,000 patients need medical evacuation outside Gaza, with this number expected to increase due to shrinking hospital bed capacity”. And UNICEF reports that “ nine of every 10 children in Gaza are experiencing severe food poverty, surviving on two or fewer food groups per day.”

The people in Gaza have been described as being on a “circle of death” as the IDF instructs them to move to one so called safe area, then move again and again with some people having moved up to five times to avoid being killed or injured. The scenes of hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians trying to move to safety are harrowing. This latest horrific massacre of two hundred and ten or more shows that nowhere in Gaza is safe. It is impossible to put words to the suffering, the pain both physical and emotional and profound grief and loss that Gazans have endured these past eight months and continue to endure daily.

Australia must sanction Israel immediately, we must stop all weapons sales, we must join Spain and other EU nations at the ICJ and we must condemn this latest massacre of innocent women and children. Israel must be sanctioned and isolated for the rogue nation that it is.

https://johnmenadue.com/four-rescued-israels-equals-over-two-hundred-dead-palestinians-yet-we-continue-to-support-a-rogue-state/

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Troops hid inside aid truck for deadly US-Israel operation in Nuseirat

The Palestinian resistance called the operation a 'complex war crime' and reported that the Israeli army killed a number of their remaining captives during a massacre that left over 200 dead

Israeli ground forces hid inside a truck used for the delivery of humanitarian aid to infiltrate the Nuseirat refugee camp on 8 June and perpetrate a new massacre of more than 200 Palestinians.

Footage aired by Al Jazeera TV shows the truck inside Nuseirat accompanied by armored tanks.

https://thecradle.co/articles/troops-hid-inside-aid-truck-for-deadly-us-israel-operation-in-nuseirat

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The Harvard graduating students denied their degrees over Palestine protest

The decision by Harvard to delay degrees for 13 students for one year has caused outrage at the university and a mass walkout from its graduation ceremony.

By Abid Hussain

More than two weeks have passed since the graduates’ commencement ceremony for 2024 at Harvard University, but Asmer Asrar Safi is still waiting to receive the degree for which he spent four years studying.

“The situation remains as is, unfortunately,” he tells Al Jazeera from Boston, United States.

Besides Safi, who is originally from Lahore, Pakistan, another 12 students find themselves in the same situation: they are all graduating students at one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world but will not be awarded their degrees for at least one year.

Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing body, barred these students from receiving their degrees during this year’s graduation ceremony on May 23 on account of their involvement in the three-week pro-Palestine encampment at the university last month.

“I am waiting for my appeals decision to come out,” 23-year-old Safi, an international student of social studies and ethnicity, migration and rights at Harvard College, says.

“I am a Rhodes Scholar and trying to ascertain if I can matriculate at the University of Oxford given that my Harvard degree has been withheld for a year, even though I have met all the academic conditions for my programme and have completed my degree requirements.”

Shraddha Joshi is another student who will not be able to receive her degree, despite having the backing of her faculty at Harvard College, where she was studying in the same programme as Safi.

“After having completed the appeal application on my end, we seem to be in a limbo as we wait for communication from the university. Students and faculty members are all quite confused by the ambiguity of the process, and the timeline for appeals is unclear,” she told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/9/the-harvard-graduating-students-denied-their-degrees-over-palestine-protest

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