April 11, 2024
Violence
has significantly spiked in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, as Israeli
troops have killed hundreds of Palestinians and detained thousands more
Iran has been
conducting a covert smuggling operation for at least two years to provide the
Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank with guns and ammunition to
confront the occupying Israeli forces, according to a recent investigation by
the New York Times (NYT).
The weapons Iran
has been sending to the West Bank mainly consist of handguns and assault
rifles, while the operation relies on the assistance of resistance factions,
local gangs, and Bedouin smugglers.
Officials from
Iran, the US, and Israel who spoke with NYT say that operatives from the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force have established two routes
that reach the West Bank. The first sees the weapons cross from Iraq toward
Syria and into Jordan, where Bedouins take the shipment and transfer them to
“criminal gangs” in Israel.
“One of the
Iranian officials said increased security since [7 October] by both Israel and
Jordan, has raised the risk of getting caught, especially for Bedouins and
Arab-Israelis who play critical roles for their ability to cross borders,” the
NYT reports.
In April 2023,
Jordanian lawmaker Imad al-Adwan was arrested in the kingdom for transporting
weapons in his car while traveling to the occupied West Bank.
The other route
reportedly used by the IRGC sees the weapons skip Jordan and instead go from
Syria into Lebanon before reaching Israel. However, this route is described as
“more challenging” as cross-border fighting between the Israeli army and
Hezbollah “is more heavily patrolled by both the Israeli military and UN
peacekeepers.”
US and Israeli
officials who spoke with the NYT said that the Israeli strike on the Iranian
consulate in Damascus last week was aimed at disrupting their operations,
adding that Division 4000 and Division 18840 of the IRGC are involved in the
smuggling operation.
In 2014, Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for the arming of the West Bank “as the only
solution to confront this brutal entity.”
“The solution is
total armed resistance against this regime … Therefore, it is my belief that
the West Bank should be armed just like Gaza. Anyone who cares about the fate
of Palestine and who is capable of doing something should provide arms to the
people [of the West Bank] too,” Khamenei said at the time.
“There was a
great focus in order for the West Bank to move from a state of coexistence and
calm, to a state of resistance that we see today, and of course all of this is
under the directives of Ali Khamenei … During our last meeting with him in
Tehran, he renewed the call for that and for the development of resistance in
the West Bank,” the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Ziyad
al-Nakhalah, said during a speech in Tehran earlier this month.
“It would not
have been easy for the Palestinian people to withstand this battle had it not
been for Iran’s continuous and consistent support at all political, military,
and security levels,” he added.
On Wednesday, a
Lebanese man accused of serving as a middleman tasked with transferring funds
from the IRGC to the Palestinian resistance in Gaza was found murdered in
Lebanon, in an apparent Mossad operation.
Qassam
Muaddi
Casualties
- 33,545 + killed* and at least 76,049 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 456+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 604 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 6,800 injured.***
*Gaza’s
Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on April 9,
2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when
accounting for those presumed dead.
**
The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly.
According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on April 5, this is the latest figure.
***
This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose
names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded is
according to Israeli media reports.
Key
Developments
- Israel kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 in the past 24 hours across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 33,482 and the number of wounded to 76,049, according to the Gaza health ministry.
- Israel kills six members of Hamas chief’s family, including three sons and three grandchildren in al-Shati’ refugee camp in northern Gaza.
- Israeli army launches dozens of strikes on al-Nuseirat refugee camp and its surroundings.
- Israeli army targets fishing dock in Gaza City.
- Israel and Iran conduct air maneuvers.
- Axios quoting Israeli officials: Israel is preparing for an Iranian attack, coordinating with the U.S.
- Israel’s Channel 12: Netanyahu didn’t keep his promise to Biden to open Asdod port for humanitarian aid.
- Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir asks war minister Yoav Gallant not to allow the release of body of Walid Daqqah.
- Israeli police to open investigation against Palestinian professor at Tel Aviv University for “terror incitement” after mourning the death of Walid Daqqah on social media.
- West Bank: Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages, torch cars.
- West Bank: Israeli forces raid Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem, villages in Bethlehem and Hebron.
Israel
kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 across Gaza
The
Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry announced that 122 Palestinians were
killed by Israeli airstrikes, their bodies arriving at the Gaza Strip’s
remaining hospitals alongside 56 other wounded people over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile,
in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed six family members of chief of Hamas’s
politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, in an airstrike on a car they were driving in at
al-Shati refugee camp. The victims include three of Haniyeh’s sons and three of
his grandchildren, aged 5, 8, and 10 years old. Israel also bombed a family
house on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City, wounding several people.
In
the central Gaza Strip, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on the
surroundings of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and then on the northern and western
parts of Nusseirat. Israeli ground forces raided the camp through the village
of Mighraqa and the town of al-Zahra, where they destroyed several residential
towers.
Palestinian
sources reported testimonies that shrapnel from the demolition landed inside an
UNRWA school used as shelter by displaced Palestinian families, causing panic.
In
the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medical teams continued to recover dead
bodies from across Khan Younis, three days after Israeli forces withdrew from
the city. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes bombed farming land near Rafah.
Iran
and Israel escalate threats, conduct maneuvers
The
Israeli public broadcasting channel said on Wednesday that the Israeli air
force conducted long-range air drills in conjunction with the Air Force of
Cyprus.
The
public broadcaster also said that the drills come in preparation for a
potential Iranian attack as a response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate
in Damascus in early April, which killed seven Iranian officials.
Simultaneously,
the Iranian news agency Mahr reported on X that Tehran’s airspace was closed
for airplanes due to military drills on Wednesday. The agency later deleted the
tweet.
On
Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated vows to avenge
the bombing of the country’s consulate, stressing that Israel “will be
punished.”
Meanwhile,
ِAxios
quoted officials in the U.S. defense department saying that Israel’s military
was coordinating with the U.S. to respond to Iran’s threats.
The
website reported that the U.S. central command chief will visit the region on
Thursday and might visit Israel to coordinate a response to a potential Iranian
attack.
Israeli
settlers attack Palestinian villages in the West Bank, Israeli army raids
Qalandia
Israeli
settlers attacked late on Wednesday the villages of Lebban, south of Nablus,
and Mughayer, east of Ramallah, setting fire to two cars, The attacks come one
day after settlers set fire to a sheep barrack in the village of Burqa, west of
Nablus.
In
Lebban, a local resident who asked not to be named told Mondoweiss that
settlers entered the village through surrounding hills around at 3 a.m.,
throwing rocks at houses while writing racist, anti-Palestinian slogans on
walls and setting fire to one car. Settlers also tried to set fire to a house,
but residents gathered and confronted them until they withdrew.
Residents’
accounts indicate that the Israeli army was stationed on the main road outside
of the village throughout the settler attack and didn’t intervene.
Meanwhile,
the Israeli army raided the Qalandia refugee camp in the northern periphery of
Jerusalem, arresting a Palestinian man.
A
resident in Qalandia told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces raided the camp before
dawn and fired tear gas and live bullets at local youth who confronted the
invading force by throwing stones. Residents’ accounts detailed that Israeli
soldiers took over rooftops and searched water tanks.
Israeli
forces have repeatedly raided Qalandia during the past month of Ramadan, often
exchanging fire with local gunmen.
A
resident told Mondoweiss that “the most difficult part during Ramadan was the
repeated closures of the camp. They prevented residents from leaving for long
hours, especially on Fridays when people tried to reach the al-Aqsa mosque. We
eventually held prayers in the street at the camp’s entrance.”
Israeli
forces also raided the town of al-Aizaryah in Jerusalem’s outskirts, arresting
four teenagers. In Tulkarem, Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians.
Raids
also targeted the villages of Taqoa, south of Bethlehem, Bir al-Basha, south of
Jenin, and Idna, west of Hebron, arresting in total at least 12 Palestinians
across the West Bank.
Since
October 7, Israeli forces have arrested over 8,100 Palestinians. Currently,
Israel holds at least 9,400 Palestinians in its jails, including 71 women, 200
children, and more than 3,600 detainees without charges under the Israeli
system of administrative detention.
RT
Iran feels obligated to punish
Israel for attacking its diplomatic mission in Syria because the UN Security
Council has failed in its duty, Tehran’s mission to the global organization
said on Thursday.
The April 1 airstrike killed seven
Iranian officers, including two generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for
the attack.
“Had the UN Security Council
condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our
diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its
perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have
been obviated,” the mission posted on
X (formerly Twitter).
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei has said that Israel “must and shall be punished” for what it did.
Israeli and US intelligence have fueled speculation that possible reprisals
could entail anything from drone attacks to ballistic missile strikes.
Israel has been bracing for some
kind of response for over a week, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
canceling all leave and starting to spoof GPS signals.
Reports on Wednesday, sources linked
to anonymous US intelligence officials spoke of an imminent Iranian strike
within 24-48 hours, following the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and
the feast of Eid-al-Fitr. Brent oil futures have risen above $90 per barrel in
anticipation.
British-based media have reported
that Israel has been preparing to attack Iranian nuclear program facilities in
the event of a missile strike. The US government has declared it would back
West Jerusalem against Tehran, but anonymous claims that American jets would
join Israeli strikes have not been officially confirmed.
Palestine
Chronicle Staff
The
Israeli army began a surprise military operation in the central Gaza Strip, in
the vicinity of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The
Israeli war council will meet tonight to discuss a possible Iranian retaliation
to the attack on the consulate in Damascus.
Israeli
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Tel Aviv is obligated to continue
the war and invade Rafah.
According
to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 33,545 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,0949
wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
LATEST
UPDATES
Thursday,
April 11, 5:00 pm (GMT+2)
UNSC:
Council members call for the immediate lifting of all obstacles to aid reaching
Gaza.
AL-JAZEERA:
Four missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards the Ramtha site in the
occupied Kfar Shuba hills.
KAN:
An Israeli F-15 fighter jet that attacked Gaza made an emergency landing at Tel
Nof Air Base “after a technical malfunction”.
Thursday,
April 11, 4:00 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
MEDIA: A demonstration by Haredi Jews took place in Jerusalem in protest
against a draft law requiring them to undergo conscription into the Israeli
army.
WALLA
(citing former Israeli Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan): We are stuck in Gaza
with no real goals or exit strategy.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Six Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing
that targeted the popular Firas Market in Gaza City.
AL-JAZEERA:
Two people were injured as a result of an Israeli bombing on a house in the new
camp, north of Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Violent clashes are taking place between the resistance and the
occupation on the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza
Strip.
Thursday,
April 11, 3:00 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: We bombed “terrorist” targets underground and above
ground in Gaza.
ISRAELI
ARMY: We opened fire to remove a threat in the Tayr Harfa area in southern
Lebanon.
AL-JAZEERA:
Two people were killed in a bombing on a home for the Al-Batsh family in the
Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
Thursday,
April 11, 2:00 pm (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Two more people were killed as a result of the continuous Israeli
bombing of the northern areas of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
GAZA
HEALTH MINISTRY: 33,545 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,0949 wounded in
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Thursday,
April 11, 1:30 pm (GMT+2)
GERMAN
FOREIGN MINISTRY: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock discussed with her
Iranian counterpart the tense situation in the Middle East.
ISRAELI
PM NETANYAHU: We are preparing for scenarios and challenges from other fields.
YEDIOTH
AHRONOTH: More than 100 Israeli female soldiers refused to work in the
surveillance unit.
Thursday,
April 11, 12:30 pm (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: The death toll resulting from an Israeli raid in the El Geneina
neighborhood, east of Rafah, has risen to six.
CNN:
Iran warned Washington against supporting Israel.
Thursday,
April 11, 11:30 am (GMT+2)
AL-QUDS
BRIGADES: We took control of an Israeli Quadcopter aircraft.
AL-JAZEERA:
Three Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing that
targeted Palestinians in the Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of the city of
Rafah.
MAARIV:
Former Israeli Justice Minister Ham Ramon said that the war ended with a
strategic defeat for Israel. The war did not achieve its goals and the Chief of
Staff must submit his resignation.
WALL
STREET JOURNAL: Intelligence reports talk about a possible imminent attack on
Israeli assets.
Thursday,
April 11, 11:00 am (GMT+2)
ABC
(citing informed source): Israel’s regional interests are at great risk. Iran
may retaliate with a proportionate response targeting an Israeli diplomatic
facility or by striking Israel directly.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Israeli artillery shelling and intense raids targeted the northern
outskirts of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI
ARMY: The 162nd Division began a surprise military operation in the central
Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI
ARMY RADIO: The army began a military operation in the vicinity of the Nuseirat
camp in the central Gaza Strip.
UNICEF:
UNICEF announced that its vehicle was hit by live ammunition while it was
waiting to enter the northern Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel.
Thursday,
April 11, 10:00 am (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
MEDIA: The Israeli War Council is meeting today in light of threats of a
possible Iranian response to the bombing of the consulate in Damascus.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Israeli aircraft bombed the Nuseirat camp, coinciding with clashes
between the resistance and invading Israeli forces.
SMOTRICH:
We are obligated to continue fighting terrorism and deepen our operations in
Rafah.
HAARETZ:
The army’s claims that the sons of Ismail Haniyeh were on their way to carry
out an attack are not accepted even by Hamas’s opponents because their children
were with them.
ISRAELI
INTERIOR MINISTER: There is no reason to prevent the Haredim from joining the
army.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Two people were killed in a bombing by Israeli boats on the Beach Camp,
west of Gaza City.
RUSSIAN
FM: The October 7 attack should not be used as an excuse to punish millions of
Palestinians.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Five Palestinians were killed and a number were wounded in an Israeli
bombing that targeted a school and a residential building in the Nuseirat camp
in the central Gaza Strip.
LIEBERMAN:
Netanyahu must transfer power in Gaza to Egypt.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: he bodies of two Palestinians were recovered following an Israeli
bombing on an apartment in Burj Al-Salhi, north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in
the central Gaza Strip.
AL-JAZEERA:
he Israeli occupation bombed the Fishermen’s Port and its surroundings, west of
Gaza City.7
ISRAELI
ARMY RADIO: the Air Force carried out a joint exercise in recent days with its
Cypriot counterpart in which it trained for long-range attacks and sorties.
Thursday,
April 11, 06:00 am (GMT+2)
AL-AQSA
CHANNEL: Violent clashes were taking place at dawn today between the resistance
and the occupation army in Madinat Al-Zahra, north of the Nuseirat camp in the
central Gaza Strip.
Thursday,
April 11, 05:00 am (GMT+2)
US
CENTRAL COMMAND: We destroyed 11 Houthi drones.
Thursday,
April 11, 04:00 am (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: the Israeli army bombed – before dawn on Thursday – the Moaz bin Jabal
Mosque in the new camp in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, which led to a
fire.
Thursday,
April 11, 03:00 am (GMT+2)
US
STATE DEPARTMENT: In a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Blinken
reiterated US support for Israel’s security. The secretary made it clear that
the United States will stand by Israel against any threats from Iran and its
‘proxies.’
Ted Snider
In both Ukraine
and Gaza, the Biden administration has adopted the dangerous doctrine of war
management in which, while not stopping a war diplomatically, it attempts to
contain it and prevent it from becoming a wider war into which the U.S. might
get drawn.
The difficult to
calibrate policy is being threatened in both theatres.
In the Middle
East, two Israeli actions appeared to escalate the calibrated strikes between
Israel and Iran to the threshold that Iran could absorb without seemingly
feeling the necessity to respond.
One was an
airstrike in southern Lebanon that killed Ali Ahmad Hassin, an important
Hezbollah commander. The more significant and volatile one was the April 1
attack on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus that killed seven Iranian
officers, including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the top Iranian Quds Force
commander in Lebanon and Syria.
Zahedi is the
most senior Iranian commander to be killed since war broke out on October 7.
But what made this strike escalatory and dangerous is that it targeted an
embassy compound under Iranian sovereignty. “When they attack our consulate,”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech on April 10, “it is as if they have
attacked our soil.” Khamenei called the decision to escalate to such an attack
a “mistake” that “must be punished.”
A direct
response by Iran against Israel could risk the nightmare scenario the United
States has sought to avoid through its policy of managing wars. In that
scenario, Iran retaliates in kind against Israel and Israel responds, drawing
Iran and Hezbollah into the war in a manner that pulls in the Houthi as well as
militias in Iraq and Syria. A Houthi source told Responsible Statecraft that
“In case a full-scale war was to erupt between Hezbollah and Israel, Yemen and
its leadership will stand with the party [Hezbollah] militarily, politically
and economically” in a way that could even include “sending foot soldiers.”
Such a force aligned against Israel could risk drawing the U.S. into the war.
In a speech on
April 5, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called the attack
on Iran’s Damascus embassy “a turning point” and said that it is “certain that
the Iranian response to the [bombing] of the Iranian consulate is coming
without a doubt.”
He said, perhaps
clearly for the first time, that Hezbollah could intervene in the event of a
full-scale Israel-Iran war. “Everyone must prepare themselves, arrange their
matters and be careful,” he said, “when the Iranian side responds to the
targeting of the Iranian consulate and to the Zionist enemy’s possible response
to the Iranian response.”
Nasrallah said
that an Iranian response is inevitable and seemed to caution against the size
of the Israeli counter-response, saying, not only that “everyone must prepare
themselves,” but reminding that Hezbollah has “not used the main weapons nor
the main forces and we have not called in the reserves.”
Nasrallah may
have been leveraging a fuller Hezbollah entrance into the war to caution Israel
and the U.S. against an even more escalatory Israeli counter-response to the
response Iran feels it must deliver. Iran may have gone even one step further,
leveraging its entrance into the war in an attempt to stop the war altogether.
As Trita Parsi,
Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute first reported, an Arab
diplomatic source told Jadeh Iran that Iran will respond to the Israeli attack
on its embassy with a direct attack on Israel unless the U.S. orchestrates a
ceasefire in Gaza. According to reporting in Jadeh Iran, “Iran has vowed to
respond to the assassination of Zahedi.” However, in an “exchange of messages
between Tehran and Washington” whose aim is “to contain escalation,” an Iranian
proposal “stipulated a ceasefire in Gaza as a price” for not striking Israel in
retaliation.
Though a causal
line cannot be drawn, it is interesting that, in an interview recorded on April
3, President Joe Biden said, “I think what [Netanyahu’s] doing is a mistake. I
don’t agree with his approach,” and then said, “So what I’m calling for is the Israelis
to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, a total
access to all food and medicine going into the country.”
It is also
interesting that the U.S. is participating in the latest round of ceasefire
negotiations in Cairo. In an April 8 press conference, National Security
Communications Advisor John Kirby said that CIA Director Bill Burns was in
Cairo for the talks. He said that the Biden administration “is doing everything
possible to broker a deal that secures the release of all the hostages and
leads to an immediate ceasefire. And
there’s simply no higher priority.”
CNN went
further, reporting that Burns wasn’t just present or participating, but that he
“presented a new proposal to try to bridge the gaps in ongoing negotiations to
broker a deal to bring about a ceasefire.”
Hezbollah may be
responding to the killing of a Hezbollah commander by leveraging the threat of
its entering the war to prevent the war from entering an uncontrolled series of
escalations. Iran may be responding to the airstrike on its embassy that killed
a general by leveraging its entering the war to stop the war altogether. How
big a factor Iran is, and how powerful its leverage, may help to determine what
comes next, how big the Israeli counter response to Iran’s promised response is
and even, perhaps, the prospects of a future ceasefire.
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