Latest news with #Israel-HamasWar
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Iran's spy game: How the Islamic Republic convinces Israelis to betray their homeland
INTERNAL SECURITY AFFAIRS: For a fistful of dollars, Israelis are ready to assist Iran in its war against Israel. Roy Mizrahi and Almog Atias, both 24 and childhood friends, are residents of Nesher, near Haifa. Mizrahi was deep in debt due to a gambling addiction, and Atias was not far behind. Then an opportunity arose that offered to them a way out of their financial mess. A member of an online swingers group, Mizrahi made the acquaintance of an anonymous member who asked him to do a bunch of seemingly unrelated and harmless tasks, and in return he was paid handsomely. First he was told to photograph the area around his home and then document a car dealership's sales board. He was then asked to burn a note with a message against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, the missions became more sinister, and at some point, according to police investigators, Mizrahi became very aware that the people calling the shots were Iranian, and he was doing their beckoning. Next, he transferred a bag buried in the ground he believed to contain a bomb from one location to another. Then, it was time for the main mission. Together with Atias, who was also recruited by the anonymous online member, a surveillance camera was purchased and the two rented a hotel room in Tel Aviv, before traveling to Kfar Ahim, the southern Israel home of Defense Minister Israel Katz. They were ordered to install a camera facing the access road to Katz's home, but the mission was aborted due to the presence of security guards. Defense officials told the court that the surveillance was part of a larger plan to assassinate the defense minister. MIZRAHI AND Atias are not an abberation. It seems that every couple of weeks a new story emerges about the recruitment of Israelis by Iranian intelligence. According to a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) report issued in January, the year 2024 saw a 400% increase in espionage cases compared to the previous year. Supt. Maor Goren, head of the security division at the Israel Police's Lahav 433 – The National Crime Unit, told KAN Reshet Bet that the arrest of Mizrahi and Atias marked the 20th case his unit and the Shin Bet have handled over the past year involving Israelis suspected of spying for Iran. There is no doubt that Tehran has used the period since the start of the Israel-Hamas War to step up its efforts to lure Israelis into spying for the regime. Twenty espionage cases have so far come to public light, and 30 indictments have been filed. Not all the stories are similar, but some clear patterns emerge. Those recruited are invariably in financial difficulty and are seeking a quick fix to settle debts. Many are new immigrants, often lacking the patriotic attachment to the state most veteran Israelis have. 'Most of those recruited are useless and are on the margins of Israeli society,' explained Yossi Melman, an espionage expert and coauthor of Spies Against Armageddon. 'But what's worrying is that a country dedicated to Israel's destruction has managed to penetrate Israeli society.' And Melman has an explanation as to why the Iranians are succeeding. 'It's connected to the disintegration of Israeli society that has been accelerating over recent years. There is no longer cohesion and solidarity,' he explained. 'Today it's each for their own, and even the government only cares about its own survival. People feel that if officials can work for Qatar, why can't they work for Iran?' Goren noted, however, that for every individual who accepts the offer, others – also contacted by Iranian operatives – cut off communication and report the approach to the police. The Iranian recruitment method is relatively simple, lacking sophistication, and without a huge financial outlay or years of planning, involving sleeper cells or similar deep penetration methods. Social media phishing is the preferred recruitment method, and it only takes a few gullible Israelis to take the bait. The Iranians are targeting haredim, new immigrants, people with a criminal background, and ordinary citizens, often going after those with financial difficulties motivated by the prospect of making some quick money. The targeting of new immigrants – a number of those arrested have been from the former Soviet Union – also may have an unfortunate ripple effect beyond a threat to Israeli security: fostering suspicion and stigmatizing specific demographics among the public. Furthermore, Iran has been able to cast a wider net, largely thanks to social media, which they leverage to recruit people. The digital approach to recruitment allows Iran to reach segments of the population that they would not have been able to access before the advent of platforms like Telegram. You may have unwittingly come across such recruitment attempts yourself. Iranian intelligence has reached out to Israelis on various platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, offering generous payments for simple tasks such as taking a photo of a particular individual or site, or spraying graffiti. Sometimes the ad will seek a private investigator to obtain information on Israeli officials. There is initially no mention of Iran, and most Israelis who were recruited claimed that, initially at least, they had no idea they were working for Tehran. Other phishing campaigns posted surveys asking Israelis to enter their personal information. The Shin Bet has an impressive track record in thwarting Iran's espionage efforts, and so far, as far as we know, there has been no serious damage caused to Israel's security. However, the espionage effort is ongoing, and it is entirely possible that individuals working for Tehran have still not been exposed. Criticism has been voiced over lenient sentencing by the courts for the individuals who are enticed by Iranian intelligence. The relatively mild punishments handed down by the courts – usually a few years in prison – are unlikely to deter people who are tempted by Iran's generous cash payments. And for Iran, the capture of individuals or a cell operating on its behalf has no consequences at all. The spymasters in Tehran merely wait patiently until the next victim answers their social media messages. Moshe Attias, an 18-year-old resident of Yavne, received the following message. 'Thank you for contacting Iranian intelligence. To speak with our experts, send a message to the Telegram user below.' Attias received around $1,800 via a digital wallet to document the ward in the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba where former prime minister Naftali Bennett was staying when hospitalized for a week in April. Attias, posing as a relative of Bennett, also described to his Iranian handlers the security arrangements in place in the hospital for the former prime minister. Last August, Israeli police arrested 73-year-old Moti Maman, from Ashkelon, for allegedly plotting to assassinate Netanyahu, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar. Maman was smuggled into Iran twice to meet with his Iranian handlers. In Iran, he allegedly requested an advance payment of $1 million, according to the indictment against him. 'Getting so close to Bennett is an achievement for the Iranians, and it shows they are still trying,' explained Melman. 'But still, their efforts pale into insignificance when compared to Israeli intelligence penetration of Iran. Maman told his handlers there was no way he could get access to top-level officials and suggested instead the mayors of Acre or Nahariya.' In March a resident of Beersheba was arrested on suspicion of offering to sell an Iranian agent information on the Negev Nuclear Research Center. Last year a couple were recruited by an Iranian intelligence network that specifically focuses on Jewish immigrants to Israel from the Caucasus region, after being initially approached by an Israeli national with Azerbaijani origins. According to the indictment the couple received $600 per day for gathering information on potential targets, including surveillance of Mossad headquarters. A seven-member Haifa cell, indicted last year, allegedly photographed dozens of military bases, Iron Dome batteries and other strategic sites across Israel, receiving between $500 and $1,200 per task. According to the indictment, one of their surveillance targets was the Nevatim Air Force Base, which was later hit in an Iranian missile strike. Not all those recruited are Jewish. Last October seven Palestinians from east Jerusalem were arrested after being recruited by Tehran. The cell plotted to assassinate an Israeli nuclear scientist and the mayor of a major city. To date, the Iranian espionage efforts don't appear to have resulted in a spectacular success, and through a combination of digital surveillance and undercover operations the Shin Bet has succeeded in thwarting Iranian efforts. No senior Israeli figures have been assassinated. The surveillance efforts may have provided Tehran with real-time intelligence on more than one occasion but do not amount to a game changer. 'But we don't know what we don't know, and what's really worrying is that Israelis are ready to betray their homeland for a fistful of dollars,' said Melman. Herb Keinon contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Who is sending humanitarian aid to Gaza?
The humanitarian crisis that has erupted in Gaza due to the Israel-Hamas War has placed renewed focus on the issue of aid in the region. Here's what you need to know. Throughout the Israel-Hamas War, the issue of humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza has been one of the largest issues dominating any and all attempts at understanding the war and attempts at how Gazan civilians have been impacted by it. This itself isn't entirely a new issue — Israel's longstanding blockade over Gaza and control of most of the entrances into the region have traditionally limited supplies in the area. This is further worsened by longstanding accusations that Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that rules Gaza, maintains control over the aid in order to further their stranglehold on the populace. But the humanitarian crisis that has erupted in Gaza due to the war has placed renewed focus on the issue, as has the Israeli government's sporadic blocking or limiting of all aid. But who is sending aid to Gaza? And what are Israel's concerns over the aid? Here's everything you need to know. Since Hamas's takeover of Gaza in 2007, Israel has placed severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods to and from the region. The Jewish state maintains control of the waters around Gaza, preventing ships from approaching, as well as maintaining air superiority. While this does not in theory bar all aid from entering Gaza by sea and air, it does in practice lead to Israel having control over all aid that does. Gaza's border has three land crossings. Two of them, the Erez Crossing and Kerem Shalom Crossing, are both under Israeli control. The third, the Rafah Border Crossing, is on the Egyptian border, and barring brief periods of IDF control, has been administered by Egypt. The limited ability to enter and leave Gaza has created chronic supply issues, which have been made worse by Israel limiting certain vital supplies out of concern that they could be used for non-humanitarian purposes. Gazans have also been limited in the ability to sustain their own supplies. Fishing is highly restricted by Israeli control of a majority of the nearby waters, and according to a 2009 UN fact finding mission report, known as the Goldstone Report, the IDF caused severe damage to much of Gaza's farmable land during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009. Some sources even claim that Israel has continued to spray herbicide on other farmable land in Gaza. This was confirmed by pro-Israel watchdog organization HonestReporting in 2019, which cited security concerns that terrorists could use the undergrowth to breach the Gaza border fence and attack Israel. However, that same report by HonestReporting further noted that the agricultural crisis in Gaza was may have also been influenced by Palestinians destroying Israeli agricultural infrastructure after the 2005 Disengagement, as well as faulty sewage systems polluting groundwater and water sources. Due to these above-mentioned issues, humanitarian aid sent by trucks is crucial for civilians living in Gaza. While the exact number of trucks regularly allowed in varies yearly depending on both political and security concerns, Israel has allowed regular aid shipments into Gaza for decades. The system, however, is often criticized for not always allowing in a sufficient amount of aid, as well as limiting in what is allowed in and having an extensive ban list – in 2009, pressure from US lawmakers and cabinet members caused Israel to lift a ban on pasta and lentils, finally allowing them into Gaza, as multiple media outlets reported at the time. Some analysts have claimed that this is a deliberate act on Israel's part to impoverish Gaza – claims supported by diplomatic cables shared by WikiLeaks in 2011. However, the Jewish state has long since denied this, though they have conceded goals to make the socioeconomic situation in Gaza less tenable. In 2008, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said 'We won't allow for a humanitarian crisis, but have no intention of making their lives easier. And the harder their lives, excluding humanitarian damage, we will not allow them to lead a pleasant life. As far as I am concerned, all of Gaza's residents can walk and have no fuel for their cars, as they live under a murderous regime,' according to a contemporary report by Der Spiegel. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has further cracked down on aid trucks entering Gaza as the war intensified, attempting to cut off all Hamas efforts to resupply and maintain full security control over the region. This even included seizing control of the Rafah Border Crossing when the IDF invasion took the city in 2024. The medical system in Gaza was severely impacted by the war, with the IDF carrying out multiple strikes on Gazan hospitals, which Hamas has been accused of using both to harbor hostages taken captive on October 7 and as bases of operations. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have also been displaced due to the fighting as the IDF works to root out Hamas and its affiliate terrorist organizations, which have caused many to become homeless. In addition, the agricultural crisis in Gaza has gotten worse as the IDF offensives have reportedly made huge swathes of formerly farmable land unusable. Aid was still allowed into the region barring some periods, especially following pressure from human rights groups and the international community. However, the situation remains tenuous. While the exact statistics are up for debate, as are the concerns on all sides and who exactly bears the most responsibility for it, there is undeniably a humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the war. Traditionally, much of the aid to Gaza has been coordinated by organs of the United Nations such as the World Food Programme (WFP), Relief Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as well as help from the Red Cross, Red Crescent, World Health Organization (WHO), and other charity organizations such as World Central Kitchen, Oxfam, World Vision, and Save the Children, among others. These organizations would work together to have aid arrive in Gaza and be distributed among the local civilians, though only after the aid was heavily screened by Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). A significant amount of aid into Gaza is also coordinated by private traders, which coordinate aid trucks directly and are able to navigate both the bureaucracy and the battlefield dangers. According to the Financial Times, this has skyrocketed to as much as 60% of all aid entering Gaza by August and September 2024 being from private traders. However, this 'aid' is highly criticized for not being aid but being business imports merely classified as aid by Israel, with the private traders accused of taking over the food distribution network and charging exorbitant prices, rendering them unaffordable to most Gazans. Speaking to the Financial Times, COGAT confirmed that permits are given to private traders to bring aid into Gaza. Others involved with the private traders further claim that the high price is justified at least in part by the need to hire armed guards to protect the convoys from looters. However, following numerous Israeli efforts to stymie aid in to Gaza, aid workers from charities such as World Central Kitchen being killed in the conflict, and accusations that UN bodies such as UNRWA and the Red Cross have aided and abetted Hamas, a new system was put forward by both the US and Israel. Aid has since been moved to the private sector, specifically by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US nonprofit established in February 2025. Through working with partner organizations, the GHF will distribute aid into Gaza via distribution hubs in the region. IDF soldiers will not be part of these efforts, though they will have secured the areas. This, officials involved have explained, is to ensure that no aid will go to Hamas. The IDF further claimed that these distribution centers could supply as many as 600,000 Gazan civilians in just a week. Also involved is Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), a private firm founded in January 2025 and run by former CIA official Philip F. Reilly, which handles the security side. An investigation by The New York Times claimed that the entire GHF plan was the brainchild of Israeli officials and US private security contractors, including Reilly, to have aid sent while circumventing traditional channels in order to further weaken Hamas's grip. Both GHF and SRS have come under fire for a lack of transparency, in particular regarding fundraising. Controversy erupted hours before GHF operations were slated to begin on May 26, 2025, when its CEO, Jake Wood, resigned. Later, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having GHF and SRS both being set up as Israeli shell companies, with the Israeli government essentially bankrolling the entire private aid distribution system – though the Prime Minister's Office denied these claims. The most commonly cited argument by Israeli officials for why it limits aid into Gaza is security concerns. Gaza, they argue, is controlled by a hostile entity in the form of Hamas, and aid could in theory be repurposed for terrorist uses. However, since the war began, many other Israeli officials have also said that this was an effort to place further pressure on Hamas into ending the war. Some lawmakers, such as Likud MK Tally Gottliv, expressed that limiting humanitarian aid and even inducing starvation would help Gazans turn on Hamas, which in turn could help lead to an end to the war and the freeing of the rest of the hostages taken on October 7, 2023. Then-defense minister Yoav Gallant further declared on October 9, 2023 that Gaza would be put under siege with all aid stopped, with him further referring to Gazans as 'human animals.' However, he later walked back on this statement. Multiple Israeli human rights organizations, such as the NGO Gisha, have accused the government of a lack of transparency about which aid is being allowed in. However, many Jewish Israelis have consistently shown opposition for aid being allowed into Gaza, as shown in polling. One of the most notable examples of this is in the form of Tzav 9, an Israeli right-wing organization that regularly protests the distribution of aid into Gaza, including attempting to attack aid trucks or block their entry.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
A pogrom, a pushback, a region transformed: 600 days since October 7
Six hundred days on, those questions still defy comprehension. And those failures—including the inability to bring all the hostages home—shape how many Israelis view the war. Wednesday marks the 600th day of the Israel-Hamas War. Six hundred days since Hamas acted on a jihadist fantasy to destroy the Jewish state, breached a border unfathomably easy to penetrate, and carried out a pogrom that would have made the Crusaders, Cossacks, and Nazis proud. No less. October 7 was a blood-soaked letter from the Jewish past, a past many mistakenly believed had been relegated to history with the establishment of the State of Israel. They were wrong. October 7 was a catastrophe that remains incomprehensible. How did the country allow an organization with genocidal designs to metastasize into a full-blown terrorist army? How did a state with Israel's vaunted intelligence capabilities fail to detect thousands of terrorists assembling to storm the border? How were key warning signals missed? Even worse, and more unfathomable, how did intelligence exist, yet go unacted upon? Why was the military, especially the air force, so slow to respond? Six hundred days on, those questions still defy comprehension. And those failures, including the inability to bring all the hostages home, shape how many Israelis view the war. There are echoes here of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In the public memory, that war is largely seen as a calamity. And it was, if judged by its opening: intelligence lapses, unpreparedness, underestimation of the enemy, ignored warnings, early battlefield disasters, and high casualties. But that wasn't the full story. By the time a ceasefire was declared, Israeli forces stood within striking distance of both Damascus and Cairo, with Egypt's Third Army completely surrounded in the Sinai. That war effectively ended the era of conventional Arab-Israeli wars. Arab leaders learned a hard truth: They could not defeat Israel through conventional military force. Yet the trauma of the war's beginning – the losses, the shock – still defines it in the Israeli psyche. Psychologists often talk about something called 'a negativity bias,' the human tendency to fixate on the bad and overlook the good. If a singer performs and 10 people praise her, while one critic says she was off-key, it's the criticism that often lingers. And what is true for the individual is also true for nations. October 7 was a day of horror. A pogrom. But it was followed by October 8, the day after. And then, the world witnessed something it hadn't seen before: the Jewish reaction to the pogrom. It was called Operation Swords of Iron, and it was angry, fierce, and relentless. And in the 600 days since, it has reshaped not only Israel but the entire Middle East in ways not seen since 1967. From a purely security standpoint, the war has produced significant gains. But many refuse or are unable to acknowledge them because of the pain and suffering endured: the devastation of October 7, the tremendous losses, and the fact that of the 251 hostages taken, 58 remain in captivity, including 20 believed to be alive. Their families are still living a nightmare. Some may ask: How can anyone speak of success when Hamas still holds hostages and Israel's failures enabled that horrific day? Because it is possible to hold multiple, and even contradictory, truths at once. Yes, October 7 was a failure of biblical proportions. Yes, Israel has not fully achieved all its war aims. But that is not all that has happened. Alongside the failures during the war, some of them glaring, there have also been major accomplishments that have changed the regional landscape. And on this 600th day of the war, those achievements deserve to be acknowledged as well. Netanyahu's promise of an 'absolute victory' has yet to materialize. But if one of the war's three central goals—alongside destroying Hamas and returning the hostages—was to ensure Gaza no longer posed a serious threat to Israel, that goal is well on its way to being met. Hamas, as a functioning military formation, has been decimated. According to estimates from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), more than 20,000 terrorists have been killed. Most of Hamas's senior leadership has been eliminated, with Israeli observers openly wondering who—if anyone—is now in charge and making the decisions. Hamas's rocket arsenal, which terrorized the South for two decades, has been drastically depleted. Its weapons production infrastructure has been severely damaged. And while assessments vary about the extent of damage to Hamas's vast tunnel system, it is no longer what it was on October 7. Much of the coastal enclave is a devastated moonscape that will take years, if not decades, to rebuild. This has extracted a high price from Israeli soldiers and Gazan civilians. But militarily, the threat Gaza once posed has been neutralized. Yes, Hamas is still recruiting, but the new fighters are mostly young, poorly trained, and motivated by a paycheck that's increasingly unreliable. They are a shadow of the well-trained Nukhba force that breached the border that dark October morning. A different reality has emerged in Gaza—a safer reality for Israel. In the West Bank, too, the IDF has made major strides. Some 950 Palestinians have been killed there, the vast majority terrorist operatives. According to INSS figures, another 15,000 have been arrested there since October 7, providing the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) with a far clearer intelligence picture. Since October 7, Israel has operated in the West Bank on a scale unseen since the Second Intifada. It has entered areas like the Jenin refugee camp that were once deemed 'off-limits' and delivered a severe blow to the terrorist infrastructure there. That doesn't mean the threat is gone. Iran continues trying to smuggle weapons and money into the area. But the gains are real and significant. Then there is Lebanon, which was, before last summer, the Kingdom of Hezbollah. Today, it is something else. Thanks to Israel's military campaign – exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, precision strikes on missile stockpiles, and years of intelligence gathering – Hezbollah has lost its iron grip on the country. This doesn't mean it won't try to bounce back; it will. But for now, Lebanon is no longer fully in the hands of Iran's proxy militia. That changes the strategic map for the better – for Israel and the entire region. Syria, even more so than Lebanon, is a different country than it was 600 days ago, thanks in large part to the actions that Israel took against Hezbollah and its actions to destroy the bulk of ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad's military as his regime was collapsing. The fall of Assad has removed the cornerstone of Iran's 'axis of resistance,' and the pipeline through which Iran moved arms to Hezbollah has been plugged up. True, no one knows exactly in which direction Ahmed al-Sharaa, Assad's successor and a former jihadist, will lead the country. Will it be down the extreme Islamic path or toward moderation? Israel needs to prepare for both scenarios, as well as a third: Syria descends into sectarian chaos, and Turkey and Iran move into the vacuum. Regardless, Syria is no longer the conventional military threat it once was or a possible Iranian springboard for an attack on Israel. That, too, is part of the post-October 7 legacy. And finally, there is Iran. Thanks to Hamas's October 7 attack, Iran is arguably at its weakest point since the Iran-Iraq War in the mid-1980s. The 'axis of resistance' it poured billions into – Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria – has been severely degraded. The Houthis still stand, but they pose nowhere near the threat the other three once did. More than that, Iran's two attacks on Israel last year showed that the best they could deliver against the Jewish state was no match for Israel's air defenses, aided by the US and its allies. The best Tehran had made little more than a dent. At the same time, Israel's counterattacks reportedly took out Iran's air defense system and have left the Islamic Republic badly exposed. Those, too, are Israeli accomplishments in this war. So, on this 600th day, it is right and necessary to grieve the hostages still in captivity, to mourn the fallen, and to rage at the failures that led to October 7. The pain is real, and the cost is immense. But it is also necessary to recognize what has been achieved since. Israel has inflicted serious, unprecedented damage on the axis of forces arrayed against it. It has reasserted military dominance, regained deterrence, changed strategic assumptions, and, in important ways, redrawn the regional map. Those gains have come at a heavy price, and they do not erase the losses nor minimize the grief. But they do matter. And they will shape the region for years to come.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The danger in focusing on this detail about the Jewish museum shooting victims
On Wednesday, a young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, was gunned down as they exited a function for young Jewish professionals hosted at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. That function happened to be about delivering humanitarian relief across the Middle East and North Africa, including Gaza, and both victims had dedicated much of their short lives to promoting interfaith and intercultural understanding and peace between Israel and Arab countries. None of this mattered to the man who was apprehended shortly after the victims were shot at close range — even as Milgrim struggled to crawl away. The suspect shouted for the cameras that had gathered, 'I did it for Gaza,' and added a chant ubiquitous in the protests over the Israel-Hamas War: 'Free, Free Palestine.' As the press first reported this tragedy, they did little to challenge the political framing established by the suspect. Outlets across the political spectrum almost universally described Milgrim and Lischinsky as employees of the Israeli Embassy. From Fox News to The Guardian, the New York Post to The New York Times, mainstream media (including MSNBC) immediately focused on the victims' employment — even though there is no evidence that the shooter could have known their place of work. What the shooter did indisputably know, when he purchased a ticket for the event three hours before he assassinated Milgrim and Lischinsky, was that he was targeting an event at a Jewish museum hosted by and for Jews. We must call out this antisemitic violence for what it is. Failing to identify this execution as a targeted, antisemitic act allows the void to be filled by dangerous claims of justified 'political action.' We saw this instantly on social media, where the falsehood that Milgrim and Lischinsky were killed because of their affiliation with Israel, not because they were thought to be Jews (Lischinsky was Christian) spread quickly. Some users ran with the idea that this murder was an act of political protest, that the killing of 'Zionist officials' as the 'highest expression of anti-Zionism.' Many others more quietly minimized the horror of this double-murder as a 'political act,' wrong only in degree, but an extreme manifestation of otherwise legitimate protest. These framings distract from the lethal antisemitism at the heart of this violent act. Rightly, this horrific murder is being investigated as a hate crime, since federal law prohibits targeting based on actual or perceived religion or national identity. Yet the stakes of this moment go far beyond the charges that are brought; this is about our relationship to violence, politics and humanity. If violence and murder are rationalized, even celebrated, in the name of political causes, we are in dangerous territory — and not only for Jews. The callousness that allowed so many to deny or minimize Hamas' rapes of Israeli women or to wave away the firebombing of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's house on Passover hurts us all and can be directed at anyone. Yet these acts are logical outcomes of a culture that celebrates escalation, and in which extremism and dehumanization have become defensible, a phenomenon that history teaches us might begin with persecuting Jews, but will not end there. The least we can do is name it. This article was originally published on
NZ Herald
22-05-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Violence at record high since WWII, experts warn of ongoing conflicts
'The level of violence happening is certainly at one of its highs since the World War II,' said Clionadh Raleigh, the founder and director of ACLED. The only year to exceed 56 was 2023, which recorded 59 armed conflicts, according to certain estimates. 'More organised violence is happening in more places, leading us to consider that we are now in a more violent time,' said Ms Raleigh. Experts estimate that at least one in every six people is exposed to some level of conflict. This conflict is not only spread out over a larger area, but has become more deadly and more complex, according to The Telegraph 's analysis of data from ACLED and the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme. Between 2010 and 2019, the global death toll resulting from armed conflict was more than 953,000. In only half the time, between 2020 and the end of 2024, the number of fatalities has reached nearly 10.5 million. The increase can largely be attributed to the eruption of three major conflicts – the military coup in Myanmar in 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the Israel-Hamas War, which began in 2023. These conflicts were responsible for more than half the fatalities recorded in 2024. Since 2021, the annual number of deaths from armed conflict has hovered about 200,000, peaking at more than 310,000 in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The only other instance in recent history when the global death toll exceeded 200,000 was at the peak of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 people were killed in one year. The number of deaths dropped slightly in 2023, which can largely be attributed to the end of the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, which accounted for 60% of the battle-related deaths in 2021 and 2022. According to The Telegraph's analysis, the death toll from conflict was most widespread in 2024, meaning every region of the world had a comparable share of deaths resulting from armed conflict, with no single region dominating. Deaths resulting from conflicts in Europe – largely owing to the war in Ukraine – made up 33% of the total. Fatalities from armed conflict in Africa made up 27% and wars in the Middle East, including the war in Gaza as well as the Sudanese civil war, accounted for 19%. Advertise with NZME. Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, and Africa (excluding 1994) all recorded higher average death tolls over the past five years than at any other point since 1989, when UCDP started recording data. The only region where this has not been the case is the Middle East, which recorded higher death tolls between 2014 and 2019 during the peak of the Syrian civil war. Although the death toll in the Middle East has been rising because of the war in Gaza, experts don't expect it to exceed the scale it was at 10 years ago. Complexities of conflict While death toll is an important metric in understanding the severity of a conflict, it does not tell the whole story. Raleigh explained that ACLED's data analysis included other factors, such as dispersion, impact on civilians and fragmentation, which could inform the severity of a crisis. For example, while Ukraine recorded the most conflict-related deaths at more than 67,000 in 2024, it was ranked 14th on ACLED's index. Raleigh said that this largely came down to the different groups involved in the war. 'It's not at all a fragmented war – very few classic interstate wars are fragmented,' she said, referring to the number of actors involved in the conflict. However, in other conflicts, such as in Myanmar – which was ranked second on ACLED's index despite having a lower death toll than Ukraine – there were hundreds of armed groups engaged in dozens of different battles. 'In places like Myanmar, there are 50 new groups that appear every week while others fall out and others reassemble. There's a constant churn,' said Raleigh, adding that the more groups involved the harder it could be to reach a resolution. A conservative estimate puts the number of new armed groups in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, close to 3000 since 2021, although not all remain operational. This figure doesn't include the groups that existed before the coup and have been fighting the central military as well as each other on and off for decades. The only place to exceed Myanmar on the index was Gaza, which ACLED reported to be the 'most dangerous and violent place in the world in 2024'. More than 80% of the Palestinian population was exposed to conflict last year and at least 35,000 fatalities were recorded as Israel continued its campaign in Gaza following the attack by Hamas on October 7 the previous year. ACLED is generally seen as the leading source for conflict data, but other organisations have their own methods of evaluating conflict and ranking countries. The Global Peace Index (GPI), which categorises nations from most to least peaceful, ranked the Palestinian territories as 145th (19th place) and Myanmar as 148th (16th). Instead, Yemen topped the list as 'the least peaceful country in the world' in 2024, which GPI attributed to the internal strife exacerbated by the Israel-Hamas War – specifically attacks from the Yemen-based Houthis against Israeli targets, which prompted retaliatory missile, drone and air strikes from the US and UK. 'An upward trend' Another metric used to analyse conflict is the impact on civilians, both in terms of the number of civilians killed as well as the number whose quality of life is affected. Siri Aas Rustad, the research director at Peace Research Institute Oslo, said: 'Most people who are affected by conflict are not killed. 'They lose health facilities, they lose schooling, they live in fear, they suffer food insecurity,' she said, noting that this figure was also trending upward at present. 'The share of people living in conflict has increased substantially and is on the rise since the 1990s. It has doubled from 1990 until now.' Based on previous trends, Rustad predicted that the world was 'heading towards more violence', but that eventually the tide would turn. 'We'll probably see a sustained high level for several years. Whether that's two years or five years is hard to say, but it will probably go down,' she said. 'All conflicts end, it just takes time. Think of it in terms of cycles and right now we're in a bad cycle.'
