Middle East War Expands, page-2477

John Day

Participant

I’ll try little bites…

Netanyahu Demands Israel Maintain Control of Gaza-Egypt Border
The demand was Netanyahu’s latest effort to sabotage ceasefire negotiations, as it came after Egypt agreed to a compromise on the border https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/11/netanyahu-demands-israel-maintain-control-of-gaza-egypt-border/

Why the West Bank is on the verge of economic collapse, The West Bank’s economic crisis and the expansion of Israel’s settlements are connected. Here’s how.
The ongoing economic crisis in the West Bank has been accentuated by Israel’s economic sanctions against the PA since October 7. Smotrich, a pro-settlement hawk, sees the PA as an impediment to the ultimate Israeli goal of settlement expansion in the entire West Bank, despite the PA’s security coordination with Israel.
But the right-wing Finance Minister still agreed to ease some of the sanctions. The reason he did this, according to an unnamed Western diplomatic source quoted by al-Araby al-Jadeed, is that the transfer was part of an agreement between the U.S. and Israel. Israel would release the withheld customs money, and in exchange, the U.S. would allow Israel to “legalize” four Israeli settlement outposts in the northern West Bank (notably, Israel already started this legalization process a year ago under Netanyahu’s right-wing government). Moreover, just last week, Israel announced the single largest Palestinian land grab in over 30 years, seizing 1,269 hectares of land in the Jordan Valley region.
Yet even the partial loosening of restrictions on withheld customs money to the PA doesn’t come close to solving the PA’s economic crisis. Israel’s economic sanctions have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinian public sector employees to survive on little to no salaries for months on end, while Israel still maintains its revocation of work permits for the some 100,000 Palestinian laborers who used to work in Israel and in Israeli settlements before October 7. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/why-the-west-bank-is-on-the-verge-of-economic-collapse/