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UN agencies criticize Israel on multiple fronts
Insights from The Guardian and Haaretz
The News
United Nations agencies launched multiple critiques of Israel over its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. U.N. officials variously said Israel must do more to deliver aid to Gaza, called for the country to stop supporting West Bank settler attacks, and accused Israel of blocking efforts to collect evidence from victims of Hamas’ assault.
“We’re dealing with this dance where we do one step forward, two steps backward, or two steps forward, one step backward, which leaves us basically always at the same point,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory.
SIGNALS
Israeli government accelerating pace of settlements built in West Bank
Thousands of Israeli housing units are being developed in the occupied West Bank, reporting by The Guardian has found. The housing developments have accelerated since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October, and are progressing at a speed that one advocacy group called “unprecedented.” Some organizations have been accused of attempting to evict Palestinians from the West Bank, and the U.S., U.K., and the European Union have all placed sanctions on Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territory. Violence has escalated in recent weeks amid clashes between settlers and Palestinians, some of which has been supported by Israeli forces. The U.N. has called for Israeli forces to “end their active participation” in settler violence, and “instead prevent further attacks, including by bringing those responsible to account.”
Israel focuses on revenge as part of security policy, analyst argues
Israel has promised to respond to Iran’s unprecedented aerial attacks on its territory last weekend. The Iranian strikes — most of which were intercepted by the U.S. and Israeli forces — followed the killing of a top Iranian commander in Syria earlier this month. Israel is convinced that “the image of the mad man … will ensure its security,” wrote Zvi Bar’el, a Middle Eastern affairs analyst at Haaretz. But that same attitude is what has isolated it from its allies since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Bar’el argued, and Israel seems to maintain that revenge is its best security policy. Meanwhile, the Israeli public “does not hesitate to swallow the lie that revenge against Iran is the only way to ensure the security of the country,” he added.
