American and Israeli officials are discussing the potential expansion of Israel’s war against Hamas to the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top American and Israeli officials held virtual talks Monday as the U.S. pushed alternatives to the ground assault against Hamas under consideration by Israelis in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a move the U.S. opposes on humanitarian grounds and that has frayed relations between the two allies.

President Joe Biden and his administration have publicly and privately urged Israel for months to refrain from a large-scale incursion into Rafah without a credible plan to relocate and safeguard noncombatants. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel I forces, which are trying to eradicate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, must be able to enter the city to root out the group’s remaining battalions.

The more than two-and-a-half-hour meeting by secure video conference was described by both sides as constructive and productive, as Washington encourages the Israelis to avoid an all-out assault on the city, where an estimated four battalions of Hamas fighters are dispersed among more than 1.3 million civilians. The White House has instead pushed Israel to take more targeted actions to kill or capture Hamas leaders while limiting civilian impacts.

The potential operation in the city has exposed one of the deepest rifts between Israel and its closest ally, funder and arms supplier. The U.S. has already openly said Israel must do more to allow food and other goods through its blockade of Gaza to avert famine.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    9 months ago

    Israel was founded on Settler Colonialism and ethnic cleansing, both fundamental to Zionism. Stop being antisemitic and conflating all Jewish people with Israel.

    Three main international treaties prohibit and/or explicitly criminalize apartheid: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute).

    The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 culminating to Plan Dalet in 1948, more details here.

    Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while minimizing the number of Palestinians and restricting their rights and obstructing their ability to challenge this dispossession. In 1967, Israel extended this policy beyond the Green Line to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it has occupied ever since. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.

    Over the years, Israel has used military rule as a key tool to establish its system of oppression and domination over Palestinians across both sides of the Green Line, applying it over different groups of Palestinians in Israel and the OPT almost continuously since 1948 – with the exception of a seven-month gap in 1967 – to advance Jewish settlement in areas of strategic importance and to dispossess Palestinians of their land and property under the guise of maintaining security.

    You can learn more in the Apartheid Reports

    Amnesty International Report

    Human Rights Watch Report

    B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      9 months ago

      At it again with irrelevant links. Wow three treaties prohibit apartheid? Great, it should be prohibited. Minority rule over the majority is disgusting. Israel doesn’t have apartheid by the literal definition of the word. You’re twisting the word to apply it to Israel, and only to Israel, because you are an anti semite.

      Terrorists don’t get to have a country. Stop whitewashing the history.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.worldEnglish
          29·
          9 months ago

          Every one of them begins with flagrant twisting of facts to suit the conclusion they want to reach.

          They gloss over the distinguishing feature of apartheid, which is minority control of the majority. Period. If it doesn’t have that, it’s not apartheid. I realize that there are people who nevertheless call Israel apartheid. That’s called anti semitism.

          • ???@lemmy.worldEnglish
            51·
            9 months ago

            Except it’s not a distinguishing feature. All these fine people have tried to show you evidence from experts on apartheid.

            The reason you don’t want to fix this mistake that you keep parrotting to everyone is that you’d have to come to terms with being a genocide supporter.

            This whole “minority rule” that you have gotten so pedantic about in some kind of tunnel vision is an excuse. A really sad excuse.

            South Africa’s apartheid was one example of minority rule over a majority. This is unique to South Africa and IS NOT some kind of defining feature of it. Apartheid is a racial segregation system that can come about in many ways. Israel has checked almost every box on the list: actual racial segragation, robbing Palestinians of their human rights even of they are citizens of Israel, literally building TWO separation walls, etc, etc.

            Even South Africa itself clearly called Israel an apartheid state, but as a response we both recall how you claimed to know more about apartheid than South Africa. So even if all legal experts in the world disagreed with you, you would still not change your opinion.

            Don’t you see the pattern of your thinking? I’m seriously asking.

            Period.

            See? We can both do this “period” shit. It doesn’t make us right.