Israel’s military has claimed it has encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two, as Gaza came under its third total communications outage since the start of the war.
“Today, there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters on Sunday, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas.
Israeli media reported that troops are expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours. Strong explosions were seen in northern Gaza after nightfall.
But the “collapse in connectivity” across Gaza reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by the Palestinian telecom company Paltel made it even more complicated to convey details of the new stage of the military offensive.
The US had to twist Egypt’s arm to get them to accept refugees, so that doesn’t explain things entirely.
Quite a few Arab countries took in Palestinians in the past. The problem is that extremists embedded themselves with the refugees. Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan all saw civil wars and strife from the extremists who wanted it to be a radical Islamic state. Jordan’s king was actually killed by the extremists and the conflict was called Black September. Subsequently, they aren’t eager to take in Palestinian refugees.
Bernie Sanders had a fantastic opinion piece the other day that lambasted Israel and Netanyahu, but very importantly, also said lasting peace could not be established without eliminating Hamas. This is a big reason why. Hamas is using the Palestinians.
I never actually said what my point was – this is a complicated conflict. It isn’t as easy as just blaming the US. There’s all sorts of geopolitics and history at play here.
The reason why neighboring states are reluctant to accept refugees is that they know they will never be able to return, and the influx of people would destabilize their own societies.
The solution isn’t for other countries to start accepting refugees - it’s that the Israelis need to stop murdering them.