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Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Israel now faces adversaries that it cannot defeat
Since October 7, 2023, the war of images has eclipsed the war of weapons. From Gaza's pulverised hospitals and starving infants to mass graves and desperate fathers digging through rubble, every pixel captured on a smartphone strikes deeper than a missile. These raw, unfiltered, and undeniable images have a far greater impact than any press conference or official speech. And for the first time in its history, Israel cannot delete them or drown them in propaganda. The horrifying images of the Israeli army massacring people at aid distribution locations prompted newspaper Haaretz's Gideon Levy to write on June 29: 'Is Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza? […] The testimonies and images emerging from Gaza don't leave room for many questions.' Even staunchly pro-Israel commentator and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman no longer buys into the Israeli narrative. In a May 9 op-ed, addressed to US President Donald Trump, he declared: 'This Israeli government is not our ally,' clarifying that it is 'behaving in ways that threaten hard-core US interests in the region'. Once, Israel's narrative was protected by the gates of editorial rooms and the gravity of Western guilt. But the smartphone shattered those gates. What we see now is no longer what Israel tells us — it's what Gaza shows us. The platforms carrying these images — TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, X — don't prioritise context; they prioritise virality. While older generations might look away, younger ones are glued to the stream of suffering, absorbed by every pixel, every siren, every moment of destruction. The global public is agitated, and this works against the Israeli interest. Israel is no longer just at war with its neighbours; it is at war with the lens itself. The psychological toll of this visual war is reverberating deep inside Israeli society. For decades, Israelis were conditioned to see themselves as global narrators of trauma, not subjects of international scrutiny. But now, with videos of Israeli bombardment, flattened Gaza neighbourhoods, and emaciated children flooding every platform, many Israelis are grappling with a growing ethical predicament. There is unease, even among centrists, that these visceral images are eroding Israel's moral high ground. For the first time, public discourse in Israeli society includes fear of the mirror: what the world now sees and what Israelis are forced to confront. Internationally, the effect has been even more destabilising for Israel's diplomatic standing. Longstanding allies, once unconditionally supportive, now face growing domestic pressure from citizens who are not consuming official statements but TikTok's live streams and Instagram's image feed. Lawmakers in Europe and North America are openly questioning arms shipments, trade deals, and diplomatic cover, not because of the briefings they have on Israeli war crimes but because their inboxes are flooded with screenshots of scattered body parts and starving children. The battlefield has expanded into parliaments, campuses, city councils, and editorial rooms. This is the backlash of a war Israel cannot win with brute force. To regain control of the narrative, Israeli officials have pressured social media platforms to curb content they dislike. Yet even Israel's most sophisticated public diplomacy efforts are struggling to keep pace with the virality of raw documentation. Behind closed doors, the Israeli military is no longer merely worried about public relations; it is concerned about prosecution. The Israeli army has admonished soldiers for taking selfies and filming themselves demolishing Palestinian homes, warning that such material is now being harvested as evidence by international human rights organisations. Footage and images from social media have already been used by activists to target Israeli servicemen abroad. In a number of cases, Israeli citizens have had to flee countries they were visiting due to war crimes complaints filed against them. In the age of smartphones, the occupation is no longer just visible — it's indictable. In the past, Israel fought wars that it could explain. Now, it fights a battle it can only react to — often too belatedly and too clumsily. The smartphone captures what the missile conceals. Social media disseminates information that official briefings attempt to suppress. The haunting images, digitally preserved, ensure that we never forget any devastating atrocity, or act of brutality. Images of conflict do not just convey information; they can also redefine our perceptions and influence our political positions. The powerful 'Napalm Girl' photo that captured the aftermath of an attack by the US-allied South Vietnamese army on civilians during the Vietnam War had a profound impact on American society. It helped create a significant shift in public opinion regarding the war, accelerating the decision of the US government to end it. Today, in Gaza, the stream of powerful images does not stop. Despite Israel's best efforts, the global opinion is overwhelmingly against its genocidal war. Smartphones have completely changed the nature of conflict by putting a camera in the hands of every witness. In this new era, Israel struggles to defeat the relentless, unfiltered visual record of its crimes that calls for justice. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Brazil's leader Lula condemns Gaza ‘genocide' at BRICS
Brazil's president says the world must act to stop what he describes as an Israeli 'genocide' in Gaza as leaders from 11 emerging BRICS nations gathered in Rio de Janeiro. 'We cannot remain indifferent to the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza, the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the use of hunger as a weapon of war,' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told leaders from China, India and other nations on Sunday. His comments came as Gaza truce talks between Israel and Hamas resumed in Doha and as pressure mounted to end the 21-month war, which began with Hamas's October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel. Lula said 'absolutely nothing could justify the terrorist actions' of Hamas on that day, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly Israeli civilians. But he also offered fierce criticism of Israel's subsequent actions. Israel's military campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians. BRICS countries have been in disagreement over how strongly to denounce Israel's bombing of Iran and its actions in Gaza. 'Autonomy in check once again' Leaders in Rio called for reform of traditional Western institutions while presenting BRICS as a defender of multilateral diplomacy in an increasingly fractured world. With forums such as the G7 and G20 groups of major economies hamstrung by divisions and the disruptive America First approach of United States President Donald Trump, expansion of BRICS has opened new space for diplomatic coordination. In his opening remarks, Lula drew a parallel with the Cold War's Non-Aligned Movement, a group of developing nations that resisted formally joining either side of a polarised global order. 'BRICS is the heir to the Non-Aligned Movement,' Lula told leaders. 'With multilateralism under attack, our autonomy is in check once again.' BRICS nations now represent more than half the world's population and 40 percent of its economic output. Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China gathered for the its first summit in 2009. The bloc later added South Africa and last year included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as members. This is the first summit of leaders to include Indonesia. Some leaders were missing from this year's summit, however. Chinese President Xi Jinping chose to send his prime minister in his place. Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending online because of a warrant issued for his arrest by the International Criminal Court. Still, several heads of state were gathering for discussions at Rio's Museum of Modern Art on Sunday and Monday, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. More than 30 nations have expressed interest in participating in BRICS, either as full members or partners.
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What's in Trump's ceasefire proposal and can it end Israel's war on Gaza?
Discussions of a ceasefire in Gaza have picked up in recent days. United States President Donald Trump said last week that Israel agreed to the conditions for a 60-day ceasefire, and negotiators could meet to carve out a path to finally ending Israel's nearly 21-month-long war on Gaza. Hamas said it delivered a 'positive response' to mediators, with amendments, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian group's asks 'unacceptable' but sent negotiators to the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks nonetheless. Netanyahu is set to visit Washington, DC, on Monday, where reports say Trump would like a deal. 'There could be a Gaza deal next week,' Trump told reporters on Saturday, adding that he had not been briefed yet about Hamas's counterproposal but that it was 'good' that they had responded. Here's all you need to know: What is Hamas asking for? According to reports, there are three main demands: At least 743 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid at GHF sites in Gaza in recent weeks. In late June, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers were deliberately ordered to fire on unarmed people waiting for food. Humanitarians have repeatedly said they are able to distribute aid and food to Palestinians in Gaza and have criticised the GHF for furthering Israel's political agenda. 'It makes aid conditional on political and military aims,' Tom Fletcher, the United Nations chief humanitarian, said in May. 'It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is a cynical sideshow … A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.' Hamas wants the Israeli military to withdraw to the positions it held before it violated the ceasefire in March of this year. In May, the Israeli military began extensive new ground operations in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians, to take 'operational control' of large swaths of the Strip. The Israeli military had already created the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the Gaza Strip into northern and southern sectors, soon after launching the war, and in April, Netanyahu announced the creation of the Morag Corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. In March, Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire that had been agreed in January, despite the conditions for the ceasefire being upheld by the Palestinian side. This time, Hamas and other Palestinian groups want international assurances that this will not be repeated. Hamas reportedly wants a US guarantee that Israeli air attacks and ground operations, which have killed thousands of Palestinians, will not resume even if the ceasefire ends without a permanent end to the war. What does the original US-backed proposal say? There is reportedly a key focus on the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza. The plan is to release 10 living Israeli captives held by Hamas and the bodies of 18 others in exchange for Palestinians lodged in Israeli prisons. The release would be staggered over a number of days. Fifty captives are still in Gaza, with about 20 reportedly alive. On the question of aid, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross would contribute to distributing sufficient quantities to Palestinians. Lastly, it calls for phased pull-outs of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza. What is Israel saying? Netanyahu reportedly agreed to the original US proposal but has called Hamas's amendments 'unacceptable'. He has said he will not end the war until all captives are released and Hamas is 'destroyed'. The latter goal has been called impossible by many analysts and is believed to be an open-ended political objective for Netanyahu to continue the war as long as he believes it will serve his personal interests. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and is still widely blamed in Israeli society for the security failures that led to Hamas's Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people died in Israel and about 250 were taken captive. Analysts believe Netanyahu wants to continue the retaliatory war on Gaza until he can gain enough political leverage to dismiss the cases against him and build enough popular support to remain the leader of Israel. Netanyahu's war has been supported by his far-right ministers, particularly Itamar Ben Gvir, minister of national security, and Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance. They want Israel's military operations to be intensified to kill more Palestinians and to stop providing any aid to the besieged and starving people in Gaza. What is life like for Palestinians in the meantime? Israel is still launching deadly attacks on Gaza, with at least 138 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, bulldozers are demolishing homes, and Israel has killed more than 1,000 people since October 7, 2023. People in the West Bank are also suffering recurring attacks by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers from illegal settlements, as well as severe limitations on movement and access to livelihoods. What are the chances a deal will be reached? Trump appears keen on reaching one, and Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for the Israeli attacks to cease. However, one major roadblock remains. 'Israel and Netanyahu are not interested in reaching a ceasefire,' Adnan Hayajneh, professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera, adding that there is a 'very slim chance' of a ceasefire. 'What Israel wants is clear … a land without a people,' Hayajneh said. 'So Palestinians are given three choices … starve to death … get killed … [or] leave the land, but Palestinians have so far proven they will not leave the land, no matter what.'
