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In Gaza, a senior Hamas leader involved in the ceasefire negotiations has told Drop Site News that Hamas will not agree to demands that it unilaterally disarm.

Basem Naim also said that Hamas would not submit to Israel’s demand for a total demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.

This comes amid reports that President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed back in December that Hamas would be given a two-month deadline to disarm.

As President Donald Trump prepares to convene the first official meeting of his so-called Board of Peace in Washington tomorrow, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have re-escalated demands that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions imminently disarm — with Netanyahu insisting that all small arms must be turned over before the Israeli military withdraws any of its forces.

“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarisation,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

This demand is being presented as a condition for any reconstruction to begin in Gaza, with no guarantees for Palestinian security or sovereignty.

Criminal complaint
On Monday, the Hind Rajab Foundation said it had filed a criminal complaint in Chile seeking the prosecution of Rom Kovtun, an Israeli soldier accused of taking part in the deadly 2024 siege of Al-Shifa Hospital.

The World Health Organisation reports at least 21 patients were killed during attacks on the hospital.

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is demanding greater access to Gaza to expand aid and recovery efforts.

Administrator Alexander De Croo spoke from Gaza City:

Alexander De Croo: “More than 300,000 families in Gaza are looking for housing. Only 10 percent of people today living in Gaza have housing which has the basic accommodations, so 90 percent of the population is today looking for housing.

“You have seen in what very difficult circumstances people have to live or have to survive.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A pro-Palestian campaigner today accused the Israeli military forces of “once again trying to sanitise its” image in Aotearoa New Zealand, condemning a “shameful” visa programme enabling soldiers to holiday in this country.

Leeann Wahanui-Peters branded the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) “more accurately as the Israeli Offence Force (IOF) because it is the illegal occupier of Palestine” at an Auckland rally condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza in spite of the “ceasefire” declared last October.

“For the next two months, members of this military force, including reservists, will be in Aotearoa under a visa programme that shamefully grants 200 working holiday visas to Israeli soldiers annually,” the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) activist told the crowd at Te Komititanga Square.

“These are not tourists. They are individuals complicit in a military apparatus that enforces a brutal apartheid and perpetrates genocide against the Palestinian people.

“They are war criminal suspects seeking to rest and relax after their crimes, welcomed with open arms by a New Zealand government that has chosen to be complicit.”

Israeli forces have killed more than 71,000 Palestinians — 84 percent of them civilians, mostly women and children — since the onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023.

The country is under investigation by the world’s top judicial body, the International Court of Justice, for “plausible genocide” — while United Nations agencies and global human rights watchdogs have already accused Tel Aviv of genocide.

War crimes warrant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant on war crimes and crimes against humanity over the policies of starvation against the besieged enclave.

The influx of Israeli soldiers into New Zealand was not a simple cultural exchange, Wahanui-Peters said.

“It is a calculated public relations exercise by a desperate and isolated rogue state.

“Israel, condemned globally for its war crimes and crimes against humanity, is desperate to maintain a facade of normalcy and international acceptance.”

Wahanui-Peters said that by embedding its soldiers within New Zealand communities as “tourists,” “workers,” or even as “athletes” in sports teams and competitions, Israel sought to “whitewash its crimes” and forge political connections with what it viewed as “fellow colonial-settler states”.

It was an attempt to use Aotearoa New Zealand as a stage — whether a beach, a tennis court, or a volleyball court — to “pretend it remained a legitimate member of the international community”.

Wahanui-Peters recalled that Israel was being investigated for genocide by the ICJ and its leaders under the ICC.

‘Tool of genocide PR’
“We must see this entire [holiday] effort for what it is — a tool of genocide PR, and we must reject it utterly.”

She said the demand for accountability was non-negotiable.

“Accountability is the cornerstone of justice. When states fail to act — as our own government has by welcoming these suspects — the people must.

“The principle of universal jurisdiction means that crimes against humanity concern all of humanity,” Wahanui-Peters said.

“These soldiers and reservists are part of a chain of command carrying out a documented genocide; their presence here, in any capacity, is an affront to every victim, every survivor and every advocate for human rights — and especially Palestinian rights.

“We will not allow Aotearoa to be a holiday resort, a sporting venue, or a training ground for war criminal suspects. We will not allow our country to be used to launder the reputation of a murderous military.”

She referred to how four coalition government leaders — Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins had been referred along with the CEOs of Rocket Lab and Rakon by PSNA to the ICC for alleged complicity in July last year.

Hind Rajab Foundation example
Wahanui-Peters praised the Hind Rajab Foundation for its an “excellent example” of direct legal action “holding these deranged sick individuals accountable”.

This week, for example, the foundation had filed a criminal complaint in Austria against an Israeli soldier accused of war crimes.

Yonatan Akriv of the 8717th “Alon” Battalion was accused on January 13 of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts contributing to genocide during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“The Israeli military’s PR campaign takes many forms. Watch for them not only as tourists but also as purported ‘athletes’,” Wahanui-Peters said.

She appealed for information to be referred to the PSNA hotline at: 027 4 APARTHEID or email: israeligenocide@psna.nz 

Other speakers also condemned the “genocide sportswashing”.

Another PSNA activist, Achmat Esau, originally from South Africa, reminded the crowd of New Zealand’s “proud opposition” to the 1981 Springbok tour to help break apartheid.

“No normal sport in an abnormal society” was the powerful slogan of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS) at the time, he said.

It highlighting that sport in apartheid South Africa could not be separated from racial segregation, leading to international boycotts against the country until apartheid ended in 1994.

Normal sports could not exist under such discrimination and he said the same applied to Israel, where many of the football teams came from illegal settlements in occupied West Bank.

“No normal sport in an abnormal society,” he said, adding that it should apply to Israel.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Ali AbunimahIsrael smuggled one of its soldiers out of Cyprus, apparently fearing his detention on charges related to the genocide in Gaza, according to Dyab Abou Jahjah, the co-founder of The Hind Rajab Foundation.

Abou Jahjah, a Belgian-Lebanese political activist and writer, told The Electronic Intifada livestream last week that his organisation was stepping up efforts all over the world to bring to justice Israeli soldiers implicated in the slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children over the last 15 months.

You can watch the interview with Abou Jahjah and all of this week’s programme in the video above.

Gaza Ceasefire Day 5. Video: The Electronic Intifada

Speaking from Gaza, Electronic Intifada contributor Donya Abu Sitta told us how people there are coping following the ceasefire, especially those returning to devastated homes and finding the remains of loved ones.

She shared a poem inspired by the hopes and fears of the young children she continued to teach throughout the genocide.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in some parts of Gaza. That was among developments covered in the news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, along with the efforts to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation.

Israel’s genocidal war has orphaned some 40,000 children in Gaza.

Contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the latest ceasefire developments and the resistance operations in the period leading up to it.

We also discussed whether US President Donald Trump will force Israel to uphold the ceasefire and what the latest indications of his approach are.

‘There is an openness to the glee and celebration of genocidal violence in Israel that I think goes beyond anything we saw during the Iraq war or during apartheid in South Africa.’

-Ali Abunimah, Executive Director of The Electronic Intifada @intifada, was arrested by Swiss… pic.twitter.com/cMLV5tLp3K

— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) January 26, 2025

And this writer took a critical look at Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

She has been hailed as a hero for urging Donald Trump to respect the rights of marginalised groups, as the new president sat listening to her sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral.

But over the last 15 months, Budde has parroted Israeli atrocity propaganda justifying genocide, and has repeatedly failed to condemn former President Joe Biden’s key role in the mass slaughter and did not call on him to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Pursuing war criminals
In the case of the soldier in Cyprus, The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint, and after initial hesitation, judicial authorities in the European Union state opened an investigation of the soldier.

“When that was opened, the Israelis smuggled the soldier out of Cyprus,” Abou Jahjah said, calling the incident the first of its kind.

“And when I say smuggling, I’m not exaggerating, because we have information that he was even taken by a private jet,” Abou Jahjah added.

The foundation is named after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was in a car with members of her family, trying to escape the Israeli onslaught in Gaza City, when they were attacked.

The story of Hind, trapped all alone in a car, surrounded by dead relatives, pleading over the phone for rescue, a conversation that was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent, is among the most poignant and brazen crimes committed during Israel’s genocide.

According to Abou Jahjah, lawyers and activists determined to seek justice for Palestinians identified a gap in the efforts to hold Israel accountable that they could fill: pursuing individual soldiers who have in many cases posted evidence of their own crimes in Gaza on social media.

The organisation and its growing global network of volunteers and legal professionals has been able to collect evidence on approximately 1000 Israeli soldiers which has been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In addition to filing cases against Israeli soldiers traveling abroad, such as the one in Cyprus, and other recent examples in Brazil, Thailand and Italy, a main focus of the foundation is individuals who hold both Israeli and another nationality.

“Regarding the dual nationals, we are not under any restraint of time,” Abou Jahjah explained. “For example, if you’re Belgian, Belgium has jurisdiction over you.”

Renouncing their second nationality cannot shield these soldiers, according to Abou Jahjah, because courts will take into account their citizenship at the time the alleged crime was committed.

Abou Jahjah feels confident that with time, war criminals will be brought to justice. The organisation is also discussing expanding its work to the United States, where it may use civil litigation to hold perpetrators accountable.

Unsurprisingly, Israel and friendly governments are pushing back against The Hind Rajab Foundation’s work, and Abou Jahjah is now living under police protection.

“Things are kind of heavy on that level, but this will not disrupt our work,” Abou Jahjah said. “It’s kind of naive of them to think that the work of the foundation depends on a person.”

“We have legal teams across the planet, very capable people. Our data is spread across the planet,” Abou Jahjah added. “There’s nothing they can do. This is happening.”

Resistance report
In his resistance report, Elmer analysed videos of operations that took place before the ceasefire, but which were only released by the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, after it took effect.

He also previewed Saturday, 25 January, when nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers.

There have been mixed messages, with Trump recently telling reporters he was not sure it would hold, but also intriguingly distancing himself from Israel. “That’s not our war, it’s their war.”

We took a look at what these comments, as well as a renewed commitment to implementing the deal expressed by Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, tell us about what to expect.

As associate editor Asa Winstanley noted, “this ceasefire is not nothing.” It came about because the resistance wore down the Israeli army, and statements from Witkoff hinting that the US may even be open to talking to Hamas deserve close attention.

‘Largely silent’
By her own admission, Bishop Mariann Budde has remained “largely silent” about the genocide in Gaza, except when she was pushing Israeli propaganda or engaging in vague, liberal hand-wringing about “peace” and “love” without ever clearly condemning the perpetrators of mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, demanding that the US stop the flow of weapons making it possible, or calling for accountability.

This type of evasion serves no one.

You can watch the programme on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

‘Surprised’ over military intensity
“Generally speaking, Israelis are quite surprised that the intensity of the military activity is growing. I think the general feeling here was a month or two ago that [the war] will fade away and slow down, but it is not,” he said.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and six wounded yesterday in further battles with the Palestinian resistance in northern Gaza.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, still faced the problems of looking like he had no victory in the war, and that any prisoner exchange with Hamas could topple him, he added.

“Any exchange will involve the release of many prisoners we have in our jails, and might — and probably will — topple his government,” Liel said.

“So he’s trying to manoeuvre and trying to find the point in time in which we will not be seeing the Hamas people and their supporters dancing in Gaza when they get the prisoners back and describing the result as a victory.”

Brazil court order over Israeli soldier
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, hailed a decision by a court in Brazil to order a probe against a visiting Israeli soldier, saying legal actions against Israelis suspected of crimes in Gaza were “necessary and overdue”.

The remarks on X came in response to the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) announcing that a Brazilian court had acted on a complaint it had filed against Israeli solider Yuval Vagdani and ordered the country’s police to launch an investigation.

Israeli media later reported that Vagdani had fled the South American country.

The Hind Rajab Foundation was established to breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honouring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.

Hind Rajab was a five-year-old girl murdered by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024 in a car in which six family members were also killed, and two would-be paramedic rescuers were also slaughtered. She died with 335 bullet wounds in her body.

“Apartheid Israel will go to great lengths to shield its soldiers since a conviction abroad for crimes against Palestinians is a precedent it cannot afford,” Albanese wrote on X.

“Yet, justice is unstoppable,” she said.

In #Brazil and elsewhere, legal actions against Israelis suspected of crimes in Gaza are necessary and overdue. #Apartheid Israel will go to great lengths to shield its soldiers since a conviction abroad for crimes against Palestinians is a precedent it cannot afford. Yet,… https://t.co/y9nNd9GqN3

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 5, 2025

Israeli plans to help accused soldiers
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Israel’s government was preparing to assist soldiers who may face arrest for participating in war crimes in Gaza when they travel abroad.

So far, more than 50 complaints have been filed against Israeli soldiers in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Belgium, France and Brazil.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Al Jazeera is part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, say activists and analysts.

The ban came almost a month after the PA launched a crackdown on a coalition of armed groups that call themselves the Jenin Brigades, reports Al Jazeera.

The groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most of its residents in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.

indiscriminate Jenin tactics
However, its indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and human rights groups told Al Jazeera.

Critics have claimed that the PA crackdown due to pressure by the Israeli authorities which have also imposed recent bans on Al Jazeera.

The PA originated with the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. It mandated that the PA recognise Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.

Israel, however, has used the last 30 years block statehood while to expanding illegal settlements on large swathes of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank to 700,000.

As an occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the PA is supposed to be in full control.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz