Israeli firefighters continue to battle wildfires that have been raging near Jerusalem for two days. Emergency services have described them as some of the “largest ever” in the country’s history.

The fires broke out on Wednesday along the main highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, spreading quickly due to the heat and strong winds.

The key highway and several other roads in the area were shut down, with people in at least ten communities forced to evacuate from what witnesses described as “walls of flame.”

More than 160 firefighting teams and 12 aircraft were deployed to contain the wildfires.

On Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “we are now in a national emergency, not just a local one,” adding that “defending Jerusalem” was a priority.

Firefighters worked through the night, unblocking the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and allowing residents in several settlements to return to their homes on Thursday. However, the fire service acknowledged in a statement that “at this stage we still have not gained control” of the conflagration.

According to the local media, at least 12 civilians and 17 firefighters, including two pregnant women, have been hospitalized due to smoke inhalation and burns.

About 5,000 acres had burned out as of Thursday, including about 3,200 acres of forest. Canada Park, outside the city of Modi’in, has been the most affected, according to the forestry organization Jewish National Fund.

Netanyahu also announced that 18 people had been arrested on suspicion of arson in connection with the fires. However, police sources told the local media that only three detentions had actually been made and that the suspects had been trying to start fires not near Jerusalem but elsewhere.

The wildfires have prompted the Israeli authorities to reduce the scale of Independence Day celebrations, marked on April 30 and May 1. The traditional torch-lighting ceremony in Jerusalem was canceled.

The chairman of the Israel Fire and Air Rescue Association, Dov Ganem, has blamed the wildfires on the government, saying that it had been unprepared to tackle disasters of such scale. Ganem told the news outlet Walla that he had long been pushing for the country to develop an advanced aerial firefighting capability, but that his calls had been ignored by officials.

https://www.rt.com/news/616627-israel-wildfires-jerusalem-netanyahu/

IF GUS WAS A BELIEVER, HE WOULD SAY THAT GOD IS ANGRY AT ISRAHELL'S GENOCIDE... BUT GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT A GOD, JUST AN EARTHLY REALITY...

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David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, has said the UK is in discussion with France and Saudi Arabia over the recognition of a Palestinian state at a June conference convened by the two countries, and on keeping alive the path to a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/apr/30/uk-foreign-secretary-says-france-and-uk-in-talks-to-recognise-palestinian-state-video

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Why Could The UK and France Recognize Palestine? Spoiler – It’s Not About Sympathy

There’s a bigger game at play, geopolitical analyst Mehmet Rakipoglu tells Sputnik.

A) Strategic autonomy: Recognizing Palestine may not yield immediate political gain – but it could be a move to challenge US hegemony, noted the researcher at UK-based Dimensions for Strategic Studies think tank. It could send a message that London and Paris are not pawns of the US and Israel or fully aligned with Donald Trump policies, he added.

B) Public pressure: The British and French governments are not suddenly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause – domestic protests and global outrage over Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza have forced their hand, argues the pundit. Anti-Zionist sentiment is surging in all Western capitals, with silence no longer an option for British and French leaders.

️C) Ethical crossroads: If the UK and France claim to uphold Western values, staying silent on Israel’s war in Gaza creates a moral dilemma, noted the analyst, since you cannot preach human rights and ignore genocide.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20250501/why-could-the-uk-and-france-recognize-palestine-spoiler--its-not-about-sympathy-1121964456.html

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

An Israeli drone bombed a Freedom Flotilla aid vessel that was en route to Gaza early on 2 May, blowing a hole through the ship, causing a fire, and putting it at risk of sinking. 

The ship was transporting humanitarian aid, 12 crew members, four civilian passengers, and dozens of rights activists. It was in international waters off Malta and had reportedly set off from Tunisia. 

The Maltese government released a statement confirming that the crewmembers were brought to safety and that the ship remains in international waters. No injuries were reported.

“At 00:23 Maltese time, a Freedom Flotilla ship was subjected to a drone attack. The front of the vessel was targeted twice, resulting in a fire and a breach in the hull,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement earlier, adding that an SOS distress signal was sent. 

CNN cited a Freedom Flotilla Coalition media official saying the strike caused the vessel to start sinking. 

Zaher al-Birawi, head of the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza, told Al Jazeera that Israeli drones were responsible for the attack.

The Freedom Flotilla’s media team said Cyprus was the only one to respond to the distress signal.

Israeli media outlet Channel 12 reported last year that Israeli forces began training exercises for a potential interception of the flotilla. 

In 2010, Israeli commandos raided a group of Freedom Flotilla ships with helicopters as they were carrying aid and headed towards Gaza to break the siege. The commandos killed nine Turkish civilians and injured 30 others of several nationalities. 

The new attack comes as all border crossings to Gaza remain shut, with the flow of aid into the strip completely halted.

Hospitals across the enclave are on the brink of total collapse due to the lack of desperately needed medical supplies, making it almost impossible to treat the scores of injured Palestinians arriving at medical centers on a daily basis.

“Throughout Gaza, food supplies are running dangerously low, and malnutrition is rapidly worsening. Last week, one partner screened 1,300 children in northern Gaza and identified more than 80 cases of acute malnutrition – a two-fold increase from previous weeks,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said last week.

The UN, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and other international organizations have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in blatant violation of humanitarian law.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-drone-bombs-gaza-freedom-flotilla-near-malta-coast

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

Egyptian sources told Al Arabiya on 2 May that Israel has backed down from terms for a truce in Gaza agreed upon in recent days, insists on expanding the military operation in the strip, and wants its forces to remain there until the end of the year.

The news comes as the Israeli military claimed it sees the return of the 59 captives still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as the most important goal of the war, contrary to the position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Thursday that “victory” over the Palestinian resistance movement, not the return of the captives, was the supreme objective.

“The supreme mission that the IDF is dealing with is our moral duty to return the hostages. The second mission is defeating Hamas. We are working to advance both goals, with the return of the hostages being at the top [of the list of priorities],” said a military official who briefed reporters earlier this week.

The occupation forces have been gearing up for an intensified offensive that would see the call-up of a large number of reservists and troops operating in new areas of Gaza, according to the military.

Netanyahu’s remarks on Thursday came as families of the captives held in Gaza accused the premier of sabotaging a potential truce deal and withholding information about the remaining 59 captives.

“There are another up to 24 alive, 59 total, and we want to return the living and the dead,” said Netanyahu, whose wife on Monday said the number of living captives was lower than the official figure cited by her husband.

“It’s a very important goal,” Netanyahu continued, but then added, “The war has a supreme goal, and the supreme goal is victory over our enemies, and this we will achieve.”

The deal’s 42-day first phase expired on 2 March amid Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate the potential second phase, which would have required a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel imposed a new blockade on the strip on 2 March and renewed its attacks on it on 18 March.

The deal’s second phase would have seen Hamas release 24 captives still thought to be alive – all of them current or former Israeli soldiers abducted by Hamas on 7 October 2023.

On 29 April, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that Israel would only stop fighting following the partition of Syria and the forced displacement of “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza.

“With God’s help and the valor of your comrades-in-arms who continue to fight even now, we will end this campaign when Syria is dismantled, Hezbollah is severely beaten, Iran is stripped of its nuclear threat, Gaza is cleansed of Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on their way out of it to other countries, our hostages are returned, some to their homes and some to the graves of Israel, and the State of Israel is stronger and more prosperous,” the far-right minister told a gathering at the Eli Yeshiva.

Al Jazeera reported that, according to medical sources, at least 22 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on the strip on Friday alone, with one strike on Bureij in central Gaza killing nine members of the same family.

Also on Friday, humanitarian coordinator Amjad Shawa in Gaza warned that more children are likely to die from malnutrition as “the whole strip is starving” due to Israel’s blockade of aid, which began 60 days ago.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,418 Palestinians and wounded 118,091, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. The Gaza Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-backs-down-from-gaza-truce-talks-demands-to-occupy-strip-until-years-end

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

by Rep. John J. Duncan Jr.

As I sat in church last Sunday, before the service started, I thought maybe I read too much.

I wish I had not read about Mohammed Hegazy, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy who was blinded by an Israeli grenade that blew up in his face as he played outside his home which is now rubble.

His father said he used to smile all the time. “Now we rarely see him smiling. He is having difficulty interacting with people due to his blindness and the psychological trauma he suffers,”

The father added: “He is constantly clinging to me and afraid to be separated from me, even more than a moment.”

More than 17,000 of those killed in Gaza during the past year and a half have been children under 14 years of age. Some four to five times that number have been wounded, many very seriously.

There is something wrong with anyone who does not think all this killing, maiming and blinding of little children is not horrific. And most of it has been done by Israeli soldiers using billions of dollars worth of American bombs, shells and weaponry paid for by American taxpayers.

I wish I had not read about Hossan Shabat,23, a young journalist who was killed by the Israeli military in late March. He had a premonition and wrote shortly before his death the following: “When all this began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like everyone else.”

He added: “I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements…anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my peoples’ side.”

At least 208 unarmed journalists have been killed in this one-sided slaughter. Shabat ended with this plea: “I ask you now: Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting. Keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”

I wish I had not read about Fatima Hassouna, 24, who also had a premonition and was killed by an Israeli airstrike a few days before she was to be married.

She was a photojournalist who was killed in mid-April along with nine members of her family the day after it was announced that a documentary she made about her life in Gaza would be shown at the Cannes Film Festival this month.

She had written on social media that she wanted “a death the world would hear.”

On April 19, 36 members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticized what‘ they called this “most extreme of Israeli governments.”

Their letter said: “Silence is seen as support for policies and actions that run contrary to our Jewish values. Led by the families of the hostages, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are demonstrating on the streets against the return to war. We stand with them. We stand against the war. We acknowledge and mourn the loss of Palestinian life.”

Before he became President, Mr. Trump criticized the war in Iraq. Last year, he criticized the Biden Administration for bombing Yemen. He said as President he would end the war in Ukraine. He said recently that he wanted to cut the U.S. defense budget in half.

A few days ago, his Defense Department proudly announced it had carried out 750 bombing raids against Yemen on behalf of Israel. The Israeli military has expanded its wars to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, killing thousands more. These wars are creating many more enemies for the U.S.

President Trump received approximately $100 million for his campaign and another $100 million for his Inauguration, according to press reports, from Miriam Adelson, widow of a Jewish multi-billlionaire, apparently for a promise of total support for the Netanyahu government in Israel.

George D. O’Neill, Jr. writing in The American Conservative Magazine for April 16, summed things up best: “When did Jesus say it was acceptable to starve the poor, slaughter women and children, while turning a blind eye to the suffering of the weak? The answer, of course, is never. Yet for years, a vocal strain of American Christian Zionist leaders have supported policies that do precisely that—enabling the starvation and slaughter of Palestinians while underwriting broader wars that have decimated ancient Christian communities across the Middle East. How did we arrive at a place where those who claim to follow the Prince of Peace justify such unchristian horrors.”

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/i-wish-i-could-stop-reading-about-the-slaughter-in-gaza/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.