Gaza-Israel prisoner exchange, Trump’s Knesset speech, Summit at Sharm El Sheik
I started watching the Gaza cease-fire live coverage on Al Jazeera at 6pm NZDT yesterday (13/10/2025). The events kept rolling into each other: the Israeli hostage release then the Knesset speech then the Palestinian release, then the Summit. The normal on the hour news bulletins were suspended, the coverage just kept rolling. A Trumpathon commanding the airwaves for 10 hours and it’s still going early this morning (as I write). What an incredible show – tearful reunions, a free-wheeling, unpredictable Trump speech, tearful reunions, talk of peace, Summit to come – a TV spectacular.
This makes a pleasing change to the dreadful war coverage of the past two years. I couldn’t watch the tragedy after the first six months or so, it was getting too heavy to fully engage in the details of the genocide. I saw the Gazans getting thinner and thinner, the area of wreckage more and more. Go to Google Maps and see the damage for yourself, it’s like Passchendaele or Hiroshima. What a relief to witness the end – or the beginning of the end – of this iteration of the intifada.
Maybe it takes a madman to end the madness? Could it be a permanent end to the conflict? The commentators on Al Jazeera – every one of them so far – has said it is doubtful. Israel and Bibi in particular is simply too cacklingly, happy merchantly, Shylockingly evil to ever be trusted. But that’s Al Jazeera for you. One of the commentators at least has the decency to profess to being slightly ashamed of her pessimism.
Coverage started with a scene in a dusty clearing – several hundred plastic seats have been set up for a ceremony in Khan Younis. The Gaza inset shows a row of mainly black-clad, armed men are lining up in a row in front of a fleet of ambulances, some of which are destroyed, wheels missing. Over in Tel Aviv crowds are waving flags, a quiet anticipation, sporadic applause in “Hostage Square”. Air Force One is landing in an hour and ten minutes.
Khan Younis: dozens more black-clad men march in. Unsure whether it is media or their own comms staff surrounding the column filming it. The group form into lines and the camera pans away. Many more people on the street leading to the clearing – no women at all.
Another inset of Ofer Prison (operated by Israel in the West Bank) – a long distance shot of a large compound with a fleet of armoured vehicles parked up – awaiting the release of over 1700 Palestinian captives from Gaza and 250 others.
The Red Cross is facilitating the exchange – they say they have seven already in their custody in Northern Gaza (but no pictures of this). An IDF helicopter to transport the Israeli captives has arrived in Riem near the Gaza border, the sand is whipped up in an orange cloud as it lands. This is a desert. They are surviving a vicious siege in a desert. The old maps have most of the coastal area as “sand dunes”. Could it be worse – yes, it’s happening in a fucking desert!
The news anchor catches himself referring to “hostages” and corrects it to “captives”. Al Jazeera is trying to be strictly neutral by calling the people seized by either side as captives rather than the Western media’s pro-Israel biased preference to refer to the Israeli captives of Hamas as abducted hostages and the Gaza captives of the IDF as detained prisoners.
A political correspondent says the 20 point “Trump Plan” already underway will be signed at Sharm El Sheik. The Board of Peace will have Trump as chair, with Tony Blair on it. So, are they the security committee or the political committee or the funding disbursement committee? It’s putrid and fanciful to think Tony “Iraq” Blair is the solution to anything in the Middle East. The arrogance of it. 200 US troops to be in Israel to co-ordinate, but none will enter Gaza. This is reasonable. Ultimately however an international force should police the Gaza-Israel border, but I doubt that is in the 20 points.
The chairs are filling up in Khan Younis. Women are in the crowd now.
“Excuse”, “fear”, “sabotage”, “can’t trust” – every commentator has the same song about Bibi. After the hostages are back anything could happen. Commentator: 82% of Israeli Jews wanted original Trump “Riviera Plan” conditional on Palestinian expulsion. Ouch.
A father is interviewed on his son’s detention. “I am overwhelmed with joy” [Interestingly the Gazans interviewed throughout the conflict and during the last ceasefire were not at all concerned with revenge, they were thankful for the respite and pitiful. Revenge was not on their minds.]
The oldest prisoner being released was detained in 1986, so 39 years incarcerated. They are jumping in Tel Aviv, but we can’t see what they are watching. They do seem very happy.
Newsreader: 7 captives have crossed into Israel. Pictures: an Israeli flag on a Toyota land cruiser in a convoy on a road alongside a barrier fence – that must be the seven.
Pictures of Airforce One in the air coming in to land – the caption is “Live: Ben Gurion Airport”. A puff of smoke as the tyres hit the tarmac. The aircraft turns on the taxiway and the gleam from the silvery metal reflects off in a brief dazzle. An honour guard and red carpet wait. Split screen with live shots of hostage convoy and Airforce One pulling up to the flight stairs. Choreographed was mentioned. The tension builds.
Bibi and the Israeli President line up on the red carpet with their wives. Ivanka and Kushner are immediately behind them as if they were the staff of the Israelis. The caption says Trump will address the Knesset. I had forgotten this point – oh God that’s right.
Trump comes down the stairs by himself, muttering. He is muttering something. He clasps Bibi firmly, Bibi is smiling, Trump looks satisfied. Commentator said Biden had a similar deal but Israelis reneged. The band is playing. The limo is a stretched Cadillac with enormous thick doors. Bibi and Trump are in the back seat talking, car stationery. Time for a private conference. According to the commentators this will be Bibi trying to wriggle out of it. The camera view lets us see into the car and Bibi has a printed paper he’s holding. Intriguing. Finally, the convoy moves off.
Replay of the trump Airforce One in-flight “gaggle” as he lurches in the doorway. At one point he rolled his eyes up – more in hope than thought: “I think it’s going to be fine; [laughs] but who knows, Katie.” Trump recites a list of Arab countries that helped out: UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan… Boasting about solving seven wars. Going to be 8.
France 24 has a live presser on the Sharm El Sheik airport tarmac in front of the French Presidential plane by Macron, who is extolling the “Franco-Saudi Plan” whatever that is!? DW TV just has the Tel Aviv feed.
Al Jazeera has a shot from Khan Younis of a small convoy of 4WDs with red crosses and a minibus – they are waiting next to a building. Earlier footage of a much larger convoy of buses winding its way through the rubble with Red Cross 4WDs in between them. The place is a mess.
8:56pm NZDT. Confirmed that 20 Israeli captives have been released.
Trump’s limo is waiting outside the Knesset lobby area. Bibi is already inside so Trump is with who in the limo? Trump out, looks focussed, serious. Bibi all smiles. Trump signing in and he shows it to the cameras and all we can think is how similar it looks to the Epstein birthday card he said he didn’t write.
Strolling in the concourse and they stop half way to rearrange where everyone is so Trump and Bibi are at the front of the entourage. They both look anxious. They pass the hall of portraits of previous PM’s. Yitzhak Rabin comes into focus as the turn the corner quite unintentionally and I cannot be alone in remembering that peace that could have been that never was.
Camera view in Knesset looks like waiting for a wedding – big vase of flowers, pensive guys in suits pacing up and down. Crowds massing in Khan Younis.
Near front desk at Knesset chamber is someone who looks like that slob, Itamar Ben-Gvir – a minister NZ has sanctioned along with Bezalel Smotrich. According to the Western nations and Winston Peters, we are supposed to think it is unacceptable to have Hamas as part of the governance of Gaza and yet these terrorists can be in the Israeli cabinet and that does not invalidate their government!?
Khan Younis convoy of Red Cross 4WDs interrupted by a donkey and cart. 9:54pm NZDT. Ramallah, live: tear gas thrown at media. Armoured car drives up to media and they turn around. First bus out of Ofer prison with Palestinians seen on long range camera. Tension.
Watching the Knesset stream as they mill around and chat they are very handsy, touchy: grabbing each other, patting each other, very physical. Full on molesting each other. Get-a-room all over each other. Gvir especially. Him and Smotrich have just left in the same direction within 30 sec of each other, maybe to scheme, maybe the toilet’s that way, who knows, Katie, who knows.
10:26pm NZDT Knesset is filling up – almost all the seats taken up now. Israelis are being walked into the helicopters under cover so we can’t see them. Is Trump waiting until the Palestinians are released before making the Knesset speech?
10:37pm NZDT. Just seen a shot of Palestinians giving the peace sign from inside the bus going through Ramallah, they look delighted. Typical crazy Arab shit going on with the buses as they get in the way, just the usual disorganised anarchy of the Arab Street. The black-clad men shush them away, unsuccessfully. So much passion, so little discipline.
Trump on the move. Knesset at attention, applause. Everyone is getting a standing ovation – Steve and Jared Kushner. IDF and police generals getting ovations. Head of the prisons – torturer – getting an ovation. Big applause for the Mossad. Hyping each other.
Newsreader: confirmation Bibi won’t be at Sharm El Sheik signing. That’s a sign in itself.
Speaker is comparing Trump to Cyrus The Great. He pops his yarmulka on for a prayer – that was nice. Any prayers for the 65k+ dead Gazan civilians? Didn’t think so. It was all how great they are.
Bibi address starts. What a huckster, a shyster, a bullshit artist extraordinaire. Jerusalem – “our eternal capital”. Thank you for… “recognising sovereignty over the Golan Heights” Standing up for Israel to the lies at the UN… Midnight Hammer… Best President etc. Plan meets all our objectives.
“These monsters…” He gets a wounded guy to stand up… clutching his stump. Was it all worth it? Such a massive failure of defence. Was it deliberate? They understand… attacking Israel was a catastrophic mistake… peace through strength… Gosh, this is a long speech. Bibi’s voice breaking over “releasing the hostages” – either acting or he was upset that his cassis belli was gone. Fluffing non-stop. Trump mouths “Thank you, Bibi”. King Solomon said…
Bibi ends with “the covenant between our two… nations”. What covenant is this exactly then? A financial instrument or what are we talking about here – covenant?
“C’mon up, Opposition” says Trump. Lapid: Nobel Prize. “Daring once again to believe…” What schtick. Genesis – “give us the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.” He then says the word Bibi could never say, the g word: “There was no genocide, no intentional starvation… use their own children as human shields” That last part is a blood libel against the Palestinians is it not?
12:09am Trump speaking, finally. Makes Bibi stand up. Thank you Bibi. “He’s not the easiest guy to deal with but that makes him great.” Trump is free-wheeling – going off the script. The way we love it. Disruption. Person expelled. Very quick. Trump clenched the lectern and didn’t move. “That was very efficient!” Ivanka converted to Judaism. Looked feline.
Abraham v. Avroham. B2’s… we just ordered 28 more of them. ISIS Military said defeat 3-4-5 years. 3 weeks. 4 weeks. This is a real general. Blah, blah, blah. And I’m thinking: have they ever apologised for the USS Liberty attack of 1967? Did you think the ISIS war was over quickly because the US and Israel supported ISIS in the first place?
“Now you can be nicer because you’re not at war, Bibi”! We all laugh. Bibi throws his arms up as if to say he was conceding the point. But he looks sus as. Trump went on to jab him some more: “You can’t beat the world”. Bibi understood it. Trump called Israel tiny, a dot. Beautiful. And then Bibi’s forced smile as Trump openly tries to snooker him into keeping the peace.
Miriam Addelson is mentioned – “her husband was a very aggressive man”. She looks like a hell Karen. They gave him half a billion dollars for elections, he didn’t mention that. “The promise of Zion”. The speech is over an hour.
Meanwhile in Gaza gun shots ring out. Happy gunfire for once. Jubilation. Ululation.
Palestinian Prisoners are skinny and pale. One is limping and being helped by others propping him up – he looks shattered. A guy in a wheelchair. What horrors? A wide shot of Khan Younis, massive crowd with no access ways whatsoever, typical Arab schmozzle. Swarming mass, no order (would the Israeli Jewish population coming mainly from Europe ever behave like that?) Al Jazeera veteran reporter Hani Mamoud without a flak jacket for the first time, ever?
2:11am NZDT Trump boards AF1. Pictures of Israeli “hostages” – look a bit thin, but not broken and hollowed out in the way the Palestinian ones were. A glimpse of Khan Younis: one liberated detainee is on someone’s shoulders racking a Glock. A harrowing account from a couple of sullen eyed Gazans: they didn’t feed us, kept us naked, beat us, cut us, every sort of torture, threats, electrified, shot in the genitals with rubber bullets. Tortured every day.
3:27am AF1 lands in Sharm el Sheik. El Sisi and Trump presser. Iran wants a deal Trump feels. The world leaders are going up one by one to shake hands and a photo op with Trump – like he’s Santa or something. It’s all about him, extraordinary. But what a tremendous result, most of which we must agree was Trump’s force of personality.
5:35am The deal is signed! Peace today. Build tomorrow.
What’s fing circus. Great the hostages are free but how is Trump not seen as the guy who made all the killing, or the scale of it, possible (just like the last President)? They are so the lap dogs of corrupt Israel it’s unbelievable.
The “War” isn’t over, its just a pause. Israel will rearm, then wait for a distraction in the medias attention, like say hypothetically when the Yanks decide to regime change Venezuela, and they will kick it off again. I’m hoping that the Palestinians get at least a six week “holiday” from the slaughter.
What these pessimistic Al Jazeera commentators miss, is the power of US impeerialism.
Trump wants the Nobel peace prize?
Good!
Everyone in the world with a Nobel medal on their mantle, or in their top draw, should immediately package ti up and send it to Trump via UPS courier.
If it greases his ego, if it helps ensure the peace, they should do it.
When the President of the American imperium gives the order to the settler colony to stop the bloodshed, they better obey.
I’m intrigued by Trumps whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Was he after one before Obama got one or is he so incensed and jealous that Obama has one that he will throw the whole cot out, let alone the toys, until he has one? Bearing in mind he’s 79 and not a 5 year old?
The do is wagging the tail. Just for a change, the imperialist dog is wagging the colonial settler tail.
From Hindustan Times:
On Way To Israel, Trump Gets Angry At Netanyahu Not Saying War Is Over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cL9x7ttm50
“The War Is Over” Donald Trump.
When Donald Trump says the war is over, it’s over.
When the imperial metropol tells the settler colony to do something, they better do it.
This interview conducted in-flight with US President Trump is a must watch, Trump says he is even allowing Hamas to rearm to settle old scores and maintain order. Letting Hamas rearm was a red line for Netanyahu.
Trump says Hamas received US approval to rearm
https://en.royanews.tv/news/64046
…..Trump has said the US is aware that Hamas is “rearming” in Gaza and claimed the group had been given US approval to do so “for a period of time”.
Asked by a reporter on board Air Force One before his arrival in ‘Israel’ about reports that Hamas was “rearming” and instituting themselves as a Palestinian police force, Trump said the group was attempting to restore order after months of war.
A lot of commentators are saying, Donald Trump has ordered Israel to end the war, because of personal ego, and because he is still angleing for a Nobel Peace Prize.
That’s part of it, sure; The main part, is the continuation of this genocidal war, is hurting Trump’s plan for a normalisation of relations between the Arab states and Israel under the Abraham Accord.
The collapse of the Abraham Accord will weaken US influence in the Middle East allowing China to have a bigger role there. One of the main reasons for the Abraham Accord was to squeaze China out of the region.
The collapse of the Abraham Accord will also hurt President Trump’s son in law Jarad Kushner Middle East business deals.
Donald Trump has even foregone his Gaza Riviera plan, to to get this peace deal over the line.
For a rare moment American imperialism’s interest has lined up with humanity’s interests.
Sour Israeli occupation forces in the Westbankj threatened to arrest Palestinians celebrating the release of the Palestinian captives.
From NPR;
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/13/nx-s1-5573139/palestinians-prisoners-released
…..Celebrations in the West Bank occurred despite Israeli warnings against doing so. A flier circulated saying anyone supporting what it called “terrorist organizations” risked arrest.
Palestinians had gathered on hills overlooking Ofer Prison. An armored Israeli vehicle drove up and fired tear gas and rubber bullets. As drones buzzed overhead, the crowd scattered.
Well done for sticking it out Martyn. Once Trump arrived, and his horrible whiney voice started up, I fell asleep. However, big shout out to Türkiye who are the real reason Netanyahu wasn’t at the summit in Egypt. They refused to turn up if he did. All a bit ironic eh?
Can people stop referring to the fucking monster Netanyahu by his nickname?
Winston Peters exposed as a sycophantic creep.
When you oppose Palestinian statehood, and even Israeli law makers are calling for Palestine to be recognised, you know that you are on the wrong side of history.
Knesset protest by left wing members briefly interrupts Trump speech
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/knesset-protest-by-left-wing-members-briefly-interrupts-trump-speech/article70158822.ece
“True peace that will save both peoples of this land from destruction will only come with the end of the occupation and apartheid and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel”, said left-wing lawmaker Ofer Cassif.
sycophantic
/ˌsɪkəˈfantɪk/
adjective
behaving or done in an obsequious way in order to gain advantage.
“a sycophantic interview”
Winston Peters takes a big dump on what he calls “so called pro-Palestinian protesters” alleged silence over the ceasefire in Gaza. Winston Peters takes sycophancy to a whole new level. What he means is that we have been silent in not praising him, Donald Trump, the whole sycophony of Arab dictators and autocrats currently taking credit for ending the genocide in Gaza. For two years, none of them did anything, just like Winston did nothing to stop this genocide.
For two years none of these crawlers and arse lickers lifted a finger or put themselves out one little bit to stop the genocide in fear of earning the disfavour the US global hegemon.
So who really deserves the credit for stopping the genocide in Gaza?
Ramzy Baroud: How Gaza’s Resistance Shook the Empire to Its Core
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1YvF3UU4CM
India & Global Left
131K subscribers
4,152 views
In this powerful conversation, journalist and historian Ramzy Baroud joins India & Global Left to discuss how Palestinian resistance in Gaza has shaken imperial power to its core. Drawing from his own family’s experience of exile and struggle, Baroud reflects on the Palestinian refugee question, the devastation and reconstruction of Gaza, and the enduring Israeli occupation. We also explore the unity of Palestinian resistance, the decay of Israeli society, and the critical role of independent media in countering propaganda and shaping the global narrative on Palestine.
Ramzy Baroud beginning @7:49 minutes (transcript lightly edited):
Everybody is kind of thanking, or trying to accentuate the role of their government in this ceasefire.
The Egyptians, the Qataris, the Saudis, the Imiratis and so forth.
But in actuality, the elephant in the room is the Palestinian people.
They are the ones who made all the difference.
It’s the resilience of the Palestinians.
The outcome of this resilience, is the resistance of the the Palestinians.
These two issues are intrinsically linked.
We don’t talk about them.
We don’t talk about them, because we are scared of talking about the resistance to begin with.
God forbid.
Even in the Left, in Western circles. They are also scared of talking about it, because they don’t want to be seen as sympathetic of a certain group that is perceived in a certain way in Western society. But in actuality, if it were not for the resilience of the Palestinian people as a collective and the byproduct of that resilience, the resistance of the Palestinian people in Gaza, none of this would have happened…..
……Did the Americans stop it? No, of course not.
It’s the the US that sustained the genocide.
Trump is lining up to to win the the Nobel Peace Prize. How pathetic is that? He is the one, along with Biden, continuing the legacy of Biden and the others before them. They are the ones who have sustained the Israeli killing machine.
Is it Egypt? Is it the Emirates? Who is the one that stopped this war?
It is the steadfastness. In Arabic we call it ‘sumud’, the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
Now the term sumud, steadfastness, has always been kind of relegated, to become something of a sentimental intellectual value. It’s not something that we measure in a political sense.
But now suddenly it’s actually a political value.
It is the patience, the power, the struggle of the Palestinians that allowed this moment to happen. And what an incredible moment.
…..We have never seen Palestinians through their resistance, able to create a decisive political outcome.
We need to reflect on this.
I think intellectuals and historians, especially honest ones, are going to be spending a lot of time trying to unravel and unpack the meaning of this moment.
All Arab armies could not impose on Israel anything. Israel always with the help of the US, of course, never on its own, and the help of other Western powers, always managed to get what it wanted, using military power to create political reality and to shape political reality,
But not in Gaza. And you would say, well, wait a minute, the Gaza army, maybe this powerful entity, right?
They are kids, kids who are manufacturing their weapons from the munition that the Israelis dumped on Gaza and did not explode. So this is really not about military.
This whole idea of we need to disarm the resistance. You can’t disarm the resistance. Because it’s not practically possible!.
You cannot disarm the resistance, because the weapons of the resistance is not an arsenal that can be checked and and labeled and removed and so forth. It is just weapons that people create in the spur of the moment to fight the enemy that is coming to invade and kill and rape and carry out the genocide…..
….I mean, so the Arabs are actually either watching from the margins or completely on the side of Israel. Yet somehow the Palestinian refugees or the Palestinian people of Gaza remain in Gaza. They still managed to get nearly 2,000 prisoners out of prison and they still managed to break the siege. And they did it all on their own with the international solidarity of ordinary people, civil society, not government, not anything of that sort.
I mean I am hesitant, but I have to say, that this is a great victory for all oppressed nations not only in the Middle East but worldwide…..
Postscript:
Winston Peters who shamefully supported this genocide right through, has to attack those who opposed it.
https://x.com/nzfirst/status/1977965552149869041
New Zealand First
@nzfirst
“The silence over the past week from some of the so-called pro-Palestinian protesters around this country has been absolutely deafening.
For two years they have ranted and raved and fumed and fulminated about the situation in Gaza. They have demanded that we do more, give more, say more and virtue signal more.
Then, over the past week, as a peace deal has been struck, as a ceasefire has taken hold and as hostages have been released, from those protesters not a mutter, not a murmur, not a syllable, not a sound. We have seen not a press release, not a tweet, not a parliamentary question, and the question is – why this deafening silence? Because you’re all about performative politics.” Winston Peters
Ramzy Baroud: How Gaza’s Resistance Shook the Empire to Its Core
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1YvF3UU4CM
India & Global Left
131K subscribers
8,123 views
Ramzy Baroud beginning @33:29 minutes (transcript lightly edited):
“….You can’t even imagine, and most people don’t fully understand.
I mean, they understand, more or less, what has been taking place in Gaza in the last two years, but a lot of people don’t know what’s been going on in Gaza in the last 77 years. And the extreme circumstances.
And yet people did not give up.
“The other issue is that of the actual process of construction.
Gaza is a communal society.
Unlike the Israelis who lost some of their homes in the war with Lebanon, with Hezbollah and others. They’re not going to be placed in five-star hotels waiting, you know, for the companies, you know, German designers, the French designers versus the Israeli companies, and which one is going to offer the best possible, villas and houses and swimming pool.
In Gaza, we don’t have any of this. We are communal society. So, what do we do? I mean, my house in Gaza, which has now been destroyed entirely along with all of my family;s homes in Gaza.
My house in Gaza started many, many years ago as a single room with no bathroom. And it has expanded with time to a second, a third, and a fourth bedroom. And it became a big house. Still a refugee house, but a big house before it was destroyed. We never paid a dime for building that house. You want to build something, the neighbors come, the relatives come, the friends come.
I think Gaza is going to surprise all of us, with the ingenuity of trying to rebuild, because the community is going to jump in there. The community is going to help. People will build their own houses. And you say, well, will where will the concrete come from?
Look at previous wars. Israel was not allowing cement into Gaza. How did they rebuild? I was in Gaza in 2012 and I was so surprised that after the war of 2008 and 9 and after the war of 2012 and all the bombings that happened, I only saw few destroyed buildings in Gaza. What happened? Thousands of homes were rebuilt. They took the concrete of the destroyed buildings. They crushed it. They reprocessed it and they used it to build the same houses, the same schools, the same mosque and churches and the same universities all over again. They are extremely durable and resilient people. They will do it as long as the genocide stops…..
I saw this. I know what Ramzy Baroud is talking about
I was in Gaza in 2010, as part of the Kia Gaza siege busting mission which entered Gaza with Viva Palestina in defiance of the illegal blockade. The pictures you see today of shattered bombed concrete buildings still standing but all the walls blown out, and only the battered concrete pillars holding them up. I saw a few such buildings still standing on the outskirts of Gaza city suburbs, left over from previous Israeli attacks, Inside one such ruined building I passed, women were sitting inside the shattered building beside piles of bent rebar, (reinforcing steel) and were straightening it by hand with little hand-held pipe benders, to be used again in the reconstruction.
My guides took me and showed me the scenes of destruction, that they wanted rare outside visitors to Gaza to witness.
A smashed and flattened, concrete batching factory, the road leading to it littered with bombed concrete trucks lying on their sides. Nothing was left of the concrete batching factory itself, except for a lone electric pump and the bore pipe, that once serviced the concrete factory, repurposed to irrigate crops planted nearby.
My guides took me to the bombed United Nations compound with the crushed UN vehicles and ambulances that had been bombed despite being emblazoned with the huge blue U.N. logo.
I saw the covered chicken and dairy barns, that had supplied Gaza with milk and eggs where all the chickens and a whole herd of catte had been bombed and killed.
But it was not the destruction that astonished me. That was nothing to what I witnessed next, which was truely astounding.
After the obligatory tour of the destruction, my drove up a small look-out rise. I was stunned by what I was seeing, It was biblical. That is the only word I can think of. I cannot properly describe in words what I was seeing.
From our vantage point, a large flat area of land stretched out below us, covered with huge conical towers of neatly stacked rubble. Stretching as far as I could see, hundreds maybe thousands of people with sledge hammers working on each pile, breaking the shattered concrete back down to be used again. Huge clouds of dust hanging over the scene. The only thing that broke the biblical vision the swinging arm of a couple of mechanical diggers, and the dump trucks delivering more broken concrete to add to the piles. Everything was being reused.
In Gaza city itself, things looked pretty normal, highrise buildings, traffic and restaurants, cafes and food markets. People going about their daily business. Eveything looked clean and tidy. Teams of men in white overalls were cleaning up the damage from the last bombing. I asked my guide who pays these men. “The Municipality” was his answer. Here and there between the highrise buildings were large bare concrete foundation slabs that had once been the footprint of highrise buildings. they, had been cleared of every piece of rubble and debri as if they had been swept by hand, nothing remained but a few weeds here and there poking up through the cracks.
Out in the suburbs I had noticed a woman and a child on a donkey cart picking up bits of concrete lying beside the roadside and putting them on her cart. When I asked about it, my guide told me that the ‘Municipality’ pays widows and poor people a few cents for every piece pf concrete that is collected.
The ‘Munipality’ is what Gazans call the government of Gaza, which of course is Hamas, Ramzy Baroud is right, Hamas cannot be disarmed, no more than the Palestinian resistance can be disarmed, no more than the people of Palestine can stop resisting their humiliation and oppression..
From Al Jazeera this shows the inequality of the prisoner release.
‘There must be thousands of happy families today?
Well, yes, but they’ve been threatened not to show it.
Families are ordered by Israel not to celebrate the release of their loved ones or raise Palestinian flags in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
And the families of prisoners who are being exiled today will likely be prevented from travelling abroad to meet them in their country of exile.
Jadallah, from Al-Haq, added that most Palestinians merely hope the captive swap represents a permanent end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
He added that Palestinians are unhappy that prominent Palestinian leaders such as Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat will not be released.
The former is arguably the most famous Palestinian political prisoner, traditionally aligned with Fatah, and the latter leads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.’
Considering that there were as many as nine thousand Palestinians in some sort of detention in 2024( including over 4000 held without trial) the present ceasefire cannot be expected to last unless there are serious negotiations between the two parties.
Such negotiations will be helped by recognition of Palestinian statehood and as we now know Winston Peters reads the Daily Blog I hope he takes note.
Pardon my pessimism, but I deeply doubt peace will prevail.
There are no female prisoners alive.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hostages-released-by-hamas-who-they-are/
Of the living hostages, all women had already been released in previous exchanges.
Well between being shot by the Israelis and left at the hands of their captors it’s a tragedy. Your dreaming if you think the Israelis are any less feral in their treatment of captives. They have just been doing it for a whole lot longer
I listened to several sets of news this morning – Radio New Zealand. The Israelis are always described as “hostages”. The Palestinians are always described as “prisoners” or “detainees”. The Palestinians are just as much hostages as the Israelis.
The Israelis have undertstood from the beginning, that to disarm the Palestinian resistance you must commit genocide against the Palestinian people.
Donald Trump is threatening to send in US troops to disarm Hamas, something that the IDF knew they couldn’t.achieve without extreme genocidal violence, and even then they failed to disarm Hamas.
Sending US troops into Gaza to continue the genocide will inflame the Arab world, and doom Trump’s prised Abraham accord and stir up protest in the West like never before
https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-latest-if-hamas-doesnt-disarm-we-will-disarm-them-perhaps-violently-trump-warns-13443931
Must be the only peace treaty in history that was signed with the two main protagonists not there.
Hamas wasn’t invited, and Netanyahu turned down his invetation preferring to stay in Tel Aviv and lick his wounds.
The IDF gleefully post their war crimes and their humiliation dehumanisation of the Palestinians, while their Zionist leaders openly incite genocide.
If social media had existed in the 1940s a documentary like this could have been made exposing the Wehrmacht and their Nazi leaders.
‘Israel’s Reel Extremism’ – A Startling Documentary from Zeteo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCmiGl5aSD4
Israel’s impunity will not last forever.
After the forensics teams have finished uncovering the mass graves and retrieving the bodies of the thousands of Palestinian families from under the rubble of bombed housing complexes, there will be a Nuremburg style trial
The IDF soldiers and Zionist politicians identified in this documentary will have to answer for their crimes.