Killed | Wounded | Missing |
34,789 | 78,204 | 11,000 |
Rafah was already crowded before the war and now, it hosts nearly 1.5
million people. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
The Israeli army announced it took
control of the Rafah crossing while new strikes targeted the southern Gaza city
killing and wounding scores of Palestinians.According to the Wall Street Journal, the United
States has decided to postpone sending precision weapons to Israel.
The New York Times reported that Hamas’ response is
serious and it only includes slight changes from what was presented by Israel
and Washington.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,789
Palestinians have been killed, and 78,204 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide
in Gaza starting on October 7.
LATEST UPDATES
Tuesday, May 7,
02:05 pm (GMT +2)
AL-MAYADEEN
(Citing top Hamas official): The Israeli takeover of the Rafah crossing with
Egypt is a provocative action aimed at ending the ceasefire talks.
AL-MAYADEEN: An
attack drone originating from Lebanon hit an Israeli military target in Israel.
AL-MAYADEEN
(Citing top Iranian official Abraj Masjidi): Iran will support any conclusion
to the war on Gaza that is accepted by Palestinian Resistance.
Reuters (Citing
Israeli official): A mid-level Israeli delegation will travel to Egypt in the
next a few hours to assess whether it can convince Hamas to change its position
on the ceasefire Proposal. Hamas has already accepted the proposal which was
mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar.
AL-QASSAM
BRIGADES: We targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yassin 105 shell. The tank
caught on fire. We also clashed with Israeli soldiers who barricaded themselves
inside a building near the tank in the Al-Shoka neighborhood, east of the city
of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
GAZA MEDIA
OFFICE: The situation in the east of Rafah governorate is resulting in a
humanitarian catastrophe due to the occupation attacks, noting that the
occupation killed 35 people in Rafah governorate during the past 24 hours.
Tuesday, May 7,
12:40 pm (GMT +2)
ISRAELI JUSTICE
MINISTER: Most of what I know about the war is from Al Jazeera.
HAARETZ: Six
mortar shells were fired at Kerem Shalom.
EGYPTIAN FM: The
Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the military operations in the
city of Rafah and Israel’s control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah
crossing.
UN: Israel
prevented us from entering the Rafah crossing.
GAZA GOVERNMENT
MEDIA OFFICE: The occupation is deliberately aggravating the situation by
closing the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.
Tuesday, May 7,
11:40 am (GMT +2)
ISRAELI ARMY
RADIO: A number of mortar shells were fired at Kerem Shalom.
AL-QASSAM
BRIGADES: We bombed enemy forces at the Karam Abu Salem site and east of Rafah.
AXIOS (citing
three Israeli soldiers): Hamas’ announcement of its approval of the deal
surprised the Israeli government.
NYT: Hamas
informed negotiators that not all of the 33 hostages to be released in Phase 1
are alive. Hamas informed negotiators that the remains of the dead hostages
would be among the first releases.
GAZA HEALTH
MINISTRY: 34,789 Palestinians have been killed, and 78,204 wounded in Israel’s
ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Tuesday, May 7,
10:00 am (GMT +2)
UNRWA: The
hunger disaster will get worse, especially in northern Gaza.
ISRAELI ARMY:
Three Israeli soldiers and a civilian were killed and 33 wounded by Hezbollah
fire last month.
AL-JAZEERA: a
Palestinian was martyred and others wounded as a result of the occupation
aircraft bombing a school to shelter displaced people in the Beach Camp, west
of Gaza City.
Tuesday, May 7,
09:00 am (GMT +2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDICAL SOURCES: 20 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli raids that
targeted homes in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, at dawn on Tuesday.
UKMTO: Two
explosions were reported near a commercial ship 82 nautical miles south of Aden
, Yemen, noting that the captain of the targeted ship confirmed the safety of
it and the crew.
ISRAELI ARMY: We
took complete control of the Rafah crossing. Kerem Shalom crossing is closed
and will open when security conditions permit.
Tuesday, May 7,
08:00 am (GMT +2)
REUTERS: The
United Nations General Assembly may vote on Friday on a draft resolution
recognizing Palestine’s eligibility for full membership.
AL-JAZEERA: The
Israeli occupation forces stormed the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza
Strip.
Tuesday, May 7,
07:00 am (GMT +2)
ISRAELI ARMY:
The Israeli army announced the killing of two officers in Metulla on the border
with Lebanon following a drone attack carried out by Hezbollah yesterday,
Monday.
WHO: The
military operation in Rafah will exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe.
Tuesday, May 7,
06:00 am (GMT +2)
NYT: The
proposal that Hamas talked about is a slight change from what was presented by
Israel and Washington. Officials considered that Hamas’ response was serious,
and stressed that it was up to Israel to decide whether to enter into an
agreement.
Tuesday, May 7,
05:00 am (GMT +2)
AL-JAZEERA: A
Palestinian was killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing that
targeted a home for the Al-Durailmi family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south
of Gaza City.
GUTERRES: An
Israeli invasion of Rafah would be unbearable.
AL-JAZEERA: Four
Palestinians were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house for the
Al-Hams family in the Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah.
Tuesday, May 7,
04:00 am (GMT +2)
AL-JAZEERA:
Israeli occupation forces targeted the eastern areas of the towns of Beit
Hanoun and Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip with raids.
Tuesday, May 7,
01:30 am (GMT +2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: A Palestinian was killed and another was injured in a bombing that
targeted a home for the Bakr family in the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City.
WSJ (citing
officials described as insiders): The United States has decided to postpone
sending precision weapons to Israel.
AL-JAZEERA: A
number of Palestinians were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house
belonging to the Baroud family in the Al-Tanour neighborhood, east of the city
of Rafah.
Tuesday, May 7,
01:30 am (GMT +2)
AL-JAZEERA:
Israeli strikes target the vicinity of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and
Egypt. Israeli strikes are also reported in the Brazil neighborhood south of
Rafah.
Eran Zelnik
A group of Jewish elders chained
themselves to the White House perimeter fence in protest of U.S.
President Joe Biden’s policies during the war in the Gaza Strip in
Washington D.C., United States on December 11, 2023. (Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On the one hand
stands the particular lesson, the Holocaust as a reminder that only Israel can
offer true safety to the Jewish people; on the other hand is the deeply
universalist commitment to “never again.”
Earlier this
week Israel marked the Holocaust in an official memorial day ceremony. Sirens
blared for one minute across the country, as all Israelis were urged to drop
everything, pull their cars to the sides of the road, and observe a minute
devoted to ruminating about the Holocaust and its lessons.
Growing up in
Israel, as a youth whose grandmother and great grandmother survived Auschwitz,
I felt the burden of that moment and concentrated deeply while two different
commitments brewed within me. On the one had my commitment to my country,
Israel, the safe haven of all Jews; on the other, my promise to myself to act
as “chasidei umut ha’olam” did. This title, sometimes known in English as the
Righteous Among the Nations, is a special honor bestowed by the state of Israel
upon those few non-Jews who during the Holocaust risked their lives and their
families’ lives to help save Jews without any promise of recompense. “In a
world of total moral collapse,” notes the central museum for the memory of the
Holocaust, Yad Vashem, “there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary
courage to uphold human values.” As part of its commitment to instill the
universal ideal of humanism, Yad Vashem has championed these individuals as
lightning rods of humanism that should offer all of us an example and model.
Israel is a
contradictory place. It holds itself as a model of enlightened democracy, even
as it carries out what most human rights organization by now recognize as an
apartheid regime. Even in its Declaration of Independence it declared itself to
be both democratic and Jewish, clearly a contradiction. This spirit of
contradiction animates the most important event in Israel’s public memory, the
Holocaust and in the lesson it draws from it. On the one hand stands the
particular lesson, the Holocaust as a reminder that only an independent Jewish
state, Israel, can offer true safety to the Jewish people. On the other hand,
Israel tries—at least some of the time—to assert a universal lesson from the
Holocaust: If a nation like Germany that viewed itself as the most enlightened
nation in the world could carry out a genocide, it can happen everywhere, and
if we don’t watch out any one of us can get caught up and become complicit in
it. Thus, as humans we must pledge to constantly ask ourselves, “What I would
have done during the Holocaust?” and follow the example of the Righteous among
the Nations.
Most people and
most nations live with contradictions. However, there comes a time when
contradictions can no longer—indeed must no longer—abide together in both
humans and nations. For Jews across the world such a time has clearly arrived.
Now more than ever we are witnessing a confrontation between the two lessons of
the Holocaust, with an increasing number of Jews outside of Israel recognizing
in the slogan “never again” a deeply universalist commitment to
humanity—especially Palestinians oppressed and killed in their name.
Organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now (whose name is a very
reference to this conviction), and others consist of Jews who refuse to stand
idle while Israel, a state that views itself as the exclusive embodiment of Jewish
aspirations, is carrying out genocidal violence in their name.
At the same
time, unfortunately, within Israel the Jewish population has doubled down on
the particular memory of the Holocaust. Having endured the greatest massacre of
Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, Jewish Israelis appear more committed
than ever to a siege mentality that does not offer any room for humanism.
Refusing to recognize the humanity of the Palestinian people in Gaza and
elsewhere and the spirit of the slogan “never again,” they are largely in
support of this mass murder of civilians and of an ultra-aggressive stance
toward Israel’s perceived enemies. Similarly, in the United States and
elsewhere, both Jewish and non-Jewish Zionist organizations, private
individuals, and even states like Germany appear consumed by their commitment
to the particular memory of the Holocaust. This is no coincidence. Israel and
its allies over more than 75 years have successfully weaponized the particular
memory of the Holocaust to deflect attention from Israeli atrocities.
The response to
campus protests across the U.S. marks a new stage in the campaign to quash any
legitimate criticism of Israel. In some of the most liberal universities in the
country, the site of some of the most iconic free speech campus struggles during
the 1960s, we are now witnessing yet again the repression of universal
humanism. Once more, cynical Zionist voices, this time in collusion with the
Republican Party, have managed to undercut universalist humanist messages by
insisting on centering the supposed antisemitism of the anti-war activists.
This particularly insidious use of the specter of antisemitism is not only a
tacit support of genocide, but a dangerous cheapening and misappropriation of
the very real rise of antisemitism—most of it not emanating from anti-war
circles, but from rabid white supremacists who have increasingly taken control
of the Republic Party.
As an Israeli
who served in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and who once thought he could
hold the contradictions of Zionism and of the dual lessons of the Holocaust, I
think it is time to settle this question once and for all. When it comes to
universalism versus particularism, to human interest versus self-interest, to
moral clarity versus moral bankruptcy, there is only one appropriate
resolution.
I believe that
as Jews we must embrace the universal lessons of the Holocaust and declare the
ongoing events in Gaza a genocide and resist an out-of-control right-wing
government that is increasingly drawing the whole region into a war. We must
renounce the Zionist interpretation of the Holocaust that has turned out to be
not only morally compromised, but also ineffective—it has not provided
protection for Jews. In fact, in no place in the world are Jews more likely to
be harmed en masse than in Israel today, be it from Palestinian resistance
groups or drones from Iran. The Jewish refuge has turned out to be a nightmare
to both Palestinians and Jews.
We must search
for better alternatives to the question of Jewish safety, ones that refuse to
compromise the safety and well-being of other people. Indeed, by now the Jewish
tragedy has also become so enmeshed in the Palestinian tragedy that they are
inseparable; the Nakba and the Shoah have become tragic parallels, nightmarish
rhymes, part of what one recent book has referred to as a shared “grammar of
trauma and history.” Jews and Palestinians must find a way to live together in
the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as true and equal
partners, and we must find justice for all who were impacted by this ongoing
tragedy.
Lastly, the onus
to find this solution is not reserved to Israelis, Jews, and Palestinians, or
even the United States and Britain, the two empires who have offered the most
support over the years to the Zionist project. The Western world at large has
been the arbiter of this ongoing tragedy since they have declared Jews to be a
racial enemy in their midst hundreds of years ago. it is therefore in no small
part up to the international community—it is their obligation—to force Israel
into stopping the ongoing genocide and to provide the means to reach a just
solution for all.
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