A Somber Anniversary, Fear in the Middle East & Bill Nye "The Science Guy" on Climate Conspiracies
It's been one year since Hamas attacked Israel and the live stream of a genocide began
This week marked one year since Hamas attacked Israel, sparking a devastating war on Gaza where the death toll stands at 42,000, with 10,000 more feared buried under the rubble and over 96,000 injured. The majority of the victims are children and women. The conflict has displaced 90% of Gaza’s population and destroyed most of its infrastructure.
At least 64 living hostages and the bodies of at least 33 hostages who are believed to be dead are still in captivity.
Hamas killed 1,139 people in Israel on October including 766 civilians including 71 foreign nationals.
"A long list of previously unthinkable events have occurred in mind-boggling fashion." - The AP on the year we never saw coming
🇺🇸 - 🇮🇱 BIDEN-NETANYAHU
Biden and Netanyahu spoke on Wednesday for the first time in seven weeks.
The backstory: Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was expected to visit the U.S. and meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday, but that meeting was canceled at the last minute.
Sources claimed Netanyahu canceled the meeting so that he could speak with Biden first. Notably, Netanyahu and Gallant do not have a friendly relationship.
Axios’s Barak Ravid — a former IDF soldier and a constant source of Israeli intel — reported that Netanyahu had been trying to contact Biden for several days. Was Biden dodging his calls? It wouldn’t have been the first time.
It seems Netanyahu held Gallant’s trip hostage until Biden finally called – which he did – because the White House wants to be involved in Israel’s planning for a strike against Iran. Without Gallant’s visit, that involvement was less likely to happen.
The Biden-Netanyahu relationship has followed a familiar pattern for the last nine months. Anonymous sources from within the Administration are frequently quoted as saying that while Biden may publicly support Israel and Netanyahu, he is impatient and angry in private.
In Bob Woodward's new book, War, which will be released next week, Biden is described as “combustible in private” with Netanyahu.
Biden said he felt, in Woodward’s accounting, that Netanyahu “had been lying to him regularly.” With Netanyahu “continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas,” Woodward wrote, “Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipment.”
The White House declined to comment on Woodward’s claims.
More from "War":
THE COST OF WAR
Brown University’s Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs calculates that the U.S. has given Israel $22.8 billion in military aid in the last year. This massive expenditure directly impacts U.S. taxpayers, as these funds could have been used for domestic programs or deficit reduction.
Some key points from the report:
📖 WORTH YOUR TIME
- ProPublica's Brett Murphy reports that despite growing concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza, U.S. diplomats have continued urging for more arms sales to Israel. The U.S. has largely ignored internal dissent over these sales, prioritizing military assistance over scrutiny of human rights abuses.
- The Nation's Séamus Malekafzali highlights Israel’s continued aggressive actions in Lebanon, paralleling its destructive approach in Gaza. The U.S. support enables this violence, despite warnings about the risks of escalating a wider regional war.
- The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon argues that if Biden wanted to, he could have mitigated Israel’s death and destruction over the last year and suggests that the US should learn to criticize its allies when they screw up, declare that Israeli and Palestinian lives both matter and prioritize “everyday people, not nations.”
🇱🇧 LEBANON
Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon, particularly in southern Beirut, causing widespread destruction and casualties. Hezbollah continued its engagement with Israeli forces, claiming to have killed 17 Israeli soldiers along the border. Hezbollah also launched rockets deeper into Israeli territory than before, killing two civilians — the first known civilian deaths in Israel in two weeks.
In Lebanon, the death toll has reached 2,255 as of Saturday, with over 10,000 injured and nearly one million displaced, according to the country's health ministry. Israel sealed a key border point used by civilians fleeing into Syria, and issued new evacuation alerts, indicating a possible expansion of ground operations. For the first time in this conflict, Lebanese forces engaged Israeli troops, leading to the deaths of two Lebanese soldiers.
The IDF attacked UN peacekeepers along the Blue Line, which divides Israel and the Golan Heights, twice in the past 48 hours, prompting Biden to urge Israel to stop.
- On Thursday, Israeli soldiers fired at two peacekeepers in a watchtower, causing them to fall. Both were injured.
- On Friday, the IDF fired at two more peacekeepers in Lebanon, and a third was shot later.
The IDF has acknowledged responsibility, stating they fired after identifying threats in the area but have not offered additional information about the alleged threats.
The head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said the attack on the tower appeared intentional, with Israeli forces also shooting out cameras, possibly to conceal their actions. The IDF claimed they had warned the peacekeepers to stay out of the area.
Netanyahu issued a statement over the weekend claiming Hezbollah was using the peacekeepers as human shields – a now frequent explanation for why the IDF attacks innocent people.
Netanyahu also claimed that UNIFIL wouldn't leave the area because they wanted to provide "human shield[s] to Hezbollah" ... instead of the more logical explanation which is that they are peacekeepers and being there is their responsibility.
DOES ISRAEL HAVE GOOD INTENTIONS?
Amnesty International criticized Israel’s evacuation orders for southern Lebanon as “inadequate and misleading.” In one case, Amnesty reported that the IDF issued warnings with incorrect maps and gave residents less than 30 minutes to evacuate before strikes began — often in the middle of the night when most people were offline or asleep.
Israel also struck a road leading to a crucial border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, claiming Hezbollah was using it to transport weapons. Lebanese officials say around 300,000 people, many of them Syrian, had used the crossing to escape to safety in Syria.
🇮🇷 IRAN
In Iran, the Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel's response to a missile attack last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel's military escalation in Lebanon.
Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, are deliberating on how to respond to Iran, considering a range of options from airstrikes to clandestine operations. The US is urging caution, particularly against targeting Iran’s oil sector.
The situation remains volatile, with Israel’s next move likely to have significant consequences throughout the Middle East.
🗳️ ELECTION 2024
Intelligence officials revealed this week that Russia, China, and Cuba are planning to spread misinformation and disinformation in an attempt to "shape the outcome of the vote" and even interfere in congressional and state races. All three governments have denied the allegations.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' White House physician released a report on her health on Saturday, emphasizing her fitness to assume the role of president. According to her doctor, her only health concerns are seasonal allergies, nearsightedness, and occasional hives.
In contrast, despite promising to release detailed medical records, Donald Trump has not done so. Instead, his campaign has only provided letters purportedly from his physicians. Trump frequently claims that Harris and Biden cannot match his superior health. At 78, Trump is the oldest presidential nominee in history.
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
🇵🇰 Pakistan’s government has recently banned the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a group advocating for the Pashtun ethnic minority, just days before it was set to protest against alleged police and military harassment. The government invoked anti-terrorism laws, which allow authorities to label a group as a terrorist organization based on “credible” information, as a measure to curb extremist activity. However, critics argue that this move misuses these laws, aimed at silencing dissent and concealing human rights abuses. No evidence has been provided to support the government's claims so far. This week, clashes with police left three people dead. Amnesty International condemned the ban, calling it an “affront to freedom.”
🇸🇩 The head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has accused Egypt of using U.S.-made bombs in airstrikes against RSF forces, a claim Egypt denies. Sudan has been embroiled in civil war since April 2023, with the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) locked in a bitter conflict. Since the war began, nearly 12 million people have been displaced, over 15,500 killed, and hundreds of thousands face famine. As Sudan’s rainy season ends in September, fighting is expected to intensify, complicating peace talks further.
🇷🇼 An outbreak of Marburg virus, an Ebola-like disease, was reported in Rwanda last week. The virus, carried by fruit bats, can be transmitted to humans and spread through contact with bodily fluids. The CDC has issued a travel advisory, recommending against travel to Rwanda due to the outbreak.
🇭🇹 Haiti's Prime Minister Garry Conille recently visited the United Arab Emirates and Kenya to seek additional security support following a brutal gang massacre in the town of Pont-Sonde. The massacre left at least 70 people dead, including infants, and forced over 6,000 residents to flee their homes. Earlier this year, the UN approved a security force to assist Haiti in combatting gang violence, which has displaced more than 700,000 people and claimed the lives of over 100 children. However, despite various countries pledging nearly 2,000 officers, only a quarter of that number has been deployed. Kenya, for instance, promised 1,000 officers but has sent only around 400.
Take Five
⓵ The Supreme Court commenced a new nine-month session on Monday, with several significant cases on the docket this term. These include:
- Garland v. VanDerStok: Whether gun-making kits, commonly known as ghost guns, can be classified as firearms and fall under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
- United States v. Skrmetti: Whether state bans on gender-affirming treatment for minors constitute discrimination.
- Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: Whether laws requiring pornographic websites to verify the age of users violate the First Amendment.
⓶ In Florida, at least ten people were killed this week as Hurricane Milton, a Category 3 storm, struck the coast and swept across central Florida. President Biden is expected to visit the affected areas on Sunday.
⓷ Bill Nye, known as “The Science Guy,” responded to Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s (R-GA) false claim that the government controls the weather.
⓸ This week, the Nobel Prizes were awarded to notable individuals, including:
- Physics: John Hinton and John Hopfield for their research on AI and its dangers.
- Peace: Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots group of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, for advocating for the end of nuclear weapons.
- Literature: Han Kang from South Korea, for her writing that “exposes the fragility of human life.”
⓹ Did you see the Northern Lights this week? See the stunning images here.
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