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Associated Press
8 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Israel is weighing its options in Gaza. Here are 4 scenarios for where things may be heading
Israel has routed its enemies across the region but has yet to return all its hostages from the Gaza Strip. Hamas appears to have been decimated militarily but has kept up insurgent attacks. Gaza is in ruins and experts say it is sliding into famine, and long-running ceasefire talks seem to have broken down. So where do we go from here? Both Israel and Hamas have embraced visions for how the war should end, but mediators from two American administrations, Egypt and Qatar have yet to bridge the gaps. There are at least two other scenarios in which the war goes on indefinitely, at an unimaginable cost to Gaza's 2 million Palestinians, the Israeli hostages and their families. Here's a closer look. Full reoccupation of Gaza For days now, Israeli media have reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on the verge of ordering the full reoccupation of Gaza for the first time since Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers two decades ago. He is expected to meet with his security Cabinet late Thursday, possibly to make a decision. That would mean sending ground troops into the few areas of Gaza that haven't been totally destroyed, the roughly 25% of the territory where much of its 2 million people have sought refuge, including the sprawling coastal displacement camps of Muwasi. It would lead to countless more Palestinian deaths and more mass displacement, and it could put the roughly 20 remaining living hostages at serious risk. It would also leave Israel in full control of the territory, obliged by international law to provide security and ensure the basic needs of the population are met. Reoccupation would spark outrage internationally and further isolate Israel and the U.S. There is also opposition within Israel, from those who fear for the hostages and former security chiefs who have warned of a quagmire. But it has strong support among Netanyahu's far-right governing partners, who have long called for the reconquest of Gaza, the relocation of much of its population to other countries, and the rebuilding of Jewish settlements. A ceasefire in line with international demands Hamas has said it will release all the remaining hostages in return for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire. Those demands were adopted by the Biden administration and the U.N. Security Council over a year ago, and enshrined in the ceasefire agreement finalized by the Trump administration in January. That brought about a six-week ceasefire, the release of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others, and a flood of humanitarian aid. The two sides were supposed to use that pause to negotiate a more lasting ceasefire. Instead, Israel ended the truce in March, demanding another temporary ceasefire and the release of some of the remaining hostages. Israel fears that withdrawing from Gaza would allow Hamas to eventually rebuild its military machine and maintain influence in the territory even if doesn't hold formal power, paving the way for another Oct. 7-style attack. Netanyahu may also fear that his far-right allies would follow through on threats to bring down the government if he agrees to such terms. That could spell the end of his 16 nearly unbroken years in power, leaving him more vulnerable to long-running corruption charges and inquiries into the security and intelligence failures around the 2023 attack. A ceasefire on Israel's termsNetanyahu has said he will end the war once all the hostages are returned and Hamas is defeated or agrees to disarm and go into exile. But even then, he says Israel will pursue plans to relocate much of Gaza's population to other countries through what he refers to as 'voluntary emigration.' The Palestinians and much of the international community see the plan as forcible expulsion in violation of international law. Netanyahu says Israel is willing to agree to a temporary ceasefire in which Hamas would release several living hostages and the bodies of others in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a flood of humanitarian aid and a partial Israeli pullback. They would then negotiate an end to the war, but Israel would require Hamas' disarmament. Hamas has said it is willing to hand over power to other Palestinians but will not lay down its arms as long as Israel occupies lands the Palestinians want for a future state. It also wants guarantees that Israel will not resume the war, as it did in March. Further military escalation could yield more concessions. But Hamas has already lost thousands of fighters and nearly all of its top leaders in Gaza, where it no longer controls many areas. Its strongest allies, Iran and Hezbollah, have been severely weakened. The hostages are the last bargaining chip held by Hamas, which also has a strong culture of martyrdom. A forever war It's quite possible the war continues in its current state. Israel could continue carrying out daily strikes across the territory, which it says have only targeted militants but have frequently killed adult civilians and children. Hamas could keep up a low tempo of hit-and-run attacks, occasionally killing Israeli soldiers. Additional measures to get more food into Gaza may stave off famine and allow aid to be distributed more safely. The hostages could survive in captivity for months or even years. Israel is set to hold elections in October 2026 — and likely earlier — which could bring in new leadership even if Netanyahu keeps his coalition intact. Which scenario unfolds will largely depend on U.S. President Donald Trump, who has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel, and who proved he has leverage over Netanyahu when he brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after 12 days of war in June. Trump has said he wants to end the war in Gaza and bring the remaining hostages home, but he has exerted no public pressure on Israel and appears to have fully accepted its terms for a ceasefire. Asked on Tuesday whether he would support Israel reoccupying Gaza, Trump said, 'It's going to be pretty much up to Israel.' ___ Follow AP's war coverage at
News24
10 minutes ago
- News24
Grok, is that Gaza? AI image checks mislocate news photographs
At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images the furore over an AFP image shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok that are from error-free. The image by Omar al-Qattaa, taken in Gaza last week, was misidentified by Grok as taken in Yemen seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online. The image below by AFP photojournalist Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal, underfed girl in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has fuelled fears of mass famine in the Palestinian territory. But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. This photo by AFP's Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal girl in Gaza on August 2, 2025. But Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot says the image was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago — AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 6, 2025 The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a seven-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows nine-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on 2 August 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25 kilograms, her mother told AFP. Today, she weighs only nine. The only nutrition she gets to help her condition is milk, Modallala told AFP - and even that's "not always available". Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error -- but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. Thanks for the tag. Upon verification from primary sources, the image is indeed from Gaza, taken August 2, 2025, by AFP's Omar al-Qattaa, showing 9-year-old Mariam Dawwas suffering severe malnutrition. Any prior misidentification as a 2018 Yemen photo was an error—visual… — Grok (@grok) August 7, 2025 Radical right bias Grok's mistakes illustrate the limits of AI tools, whose functions are as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, "Hello ChatGPT". Each AI has biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI start-up, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of US President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. READ | 'Could conflict with Elon's vision': Grok 4 consults with Musk in delivering some responses Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI does not necessarily seek accuracy -- "that's not the goal," the expert said. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. 'Friendly pathological liar' An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning - the so-called alignment phase - which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," Diesbach said. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat - which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French start-up and the news agency - the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said. "You have to look at it like a friendly pathological liar - it may not always lie, but it always could."
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bismuth elected FADC head, ousting Edelstein over haredi draft bill
Edelstein, prior to the vote, published for the first time the draft of the conscription law, which was sent to committee members. Likud MK Boaz Bismuth was elected as chairperson of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday after the ousting of former committee head Likud MK Yuli Edelstein. Heated clashes on the topic of Bismuth's appointment and the legislation surrounding the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription law took place for over five hours before the first round of votes was conducted at the Knesset's House Committee. Bismuth was then officially appointed by the FADC in a second vote. The controversial replacement came after a fallout in negotiations over a haredi IDF conscription law proposal, which followed the departure of the two haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, from the government in July. Haredi politicians had opposed Edelstein's attempts to insert enforcement and oversight mechanisms to ensure that haredim who receive an exemption from IDF service are actually studying in yeshivot, and Edelstein refused to enable a law to pass that would de facto enable the majority of eligible haredi men to evade service. Just before the meeting began, Edelstein released for the first time the version of the conscription law that led to the controversy and his ultimate dismissal. Edelstein stood firmly by the bill he had drafted, defending his reasoning for going ahead with it despite the strong opposition from the haredi parties. The draft of the law set graduated conscription targets for yeshiva students over five years, with a gradual annual conscription requirement starting at 5,760 soldiers in 2025 and rising to 9,500 soldiers in the fifth year. The change won't achieve anything, Edelstein claims 'From the start, I said this wouldn't be a fake draft law,' Edelstein explained, referring to the previous arrangement established by law for the deferral of haredi recruitment, which expired in 2023. 'I fought for a fair draft law, but the haredi leadership refused. Changing the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee won't change anything,' he continued. 'This removal will only lead to chaos, especially as the IDF begins enforcement operations. Today's vote is the final nail in the coffin of the draft law. I appeal to the serving public – this issue is in my blood, even if we've had disagreements. I promise not to abandon you and to continue working for a real draft law, in the committee or outside.' UTJ co-leader Yitzhak Goldknopf told the committee that his party 'did not want a draft-dodging law.' 'We wanted a lasting arrangement that would allow anyone whose Torah is their faith to continue studying. Even those who sit and study Torah day and night – we must ensure that they can continue to learn,' he said. MKs attending the meeting repeatedly raised the issue of a lack of manpower in the IDF, and soldiers and reservists are no longer able to bear the load without the conscription of further soldiers from the haredi population. Yesh Atid MK Meirav Cohen condemned the move to replace Edelstein as Israel's 'soldiers and reservists are collapsing under the burden.' 'There is no clause in the rules about replacing a chair who has done nothing wrong. You're setting a dangerous precedent. Replacing the chair now means dragging out the process again [for the conscription bill to be passed]. What message does this send to the soldiers in the field?' In strong defense of Bismuth's appointment, Likud MK Tally Gotliv expressed, 'For over a year, I've been saying the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee should be replaced. He prevented us from overseeing the military leadership. We've had 40 discussions with no outcome. We will enact a law that will lead to haredi enlistment.' Gotliv also underscored her belief that 'Bismuth has a deep understanding of the Middle East and a solid security outlook.' Bereaved families of hostages and soldiers slammed the MKs attending the committee meeting, calling for the return of the hostages, and many calling for haredi conscription as well. A large sign was held up on the committee room's table with the words 'Where is Rom?' referring to the hostage Rom Braslavski, who was seen suffering from severe hunger in a recently published Palestinian Islamic Jihad video. Eliav Breuer contributed to this report. Solve the daily Crossword
