Neither the presence of European diplomats nor a press vest has prevented Israeli settlers from acting with violence again in the West Bank. This Saturday, a group of settlers attacked a European diplomatic delegation in Taybeh, a Christian-majority Palestinian town located east of Ramallah in the West Bank, a territory considered occupied since 1967 by the international community.

Many people do not know this, but 20% of Israel's population is Palestinian. And for the first time in its history, this minority could be key in tipping the result of the Israeli elections on October 27th. Polls point to a 50-50 tie between the governing bloc of Benjamin Netanyahu's right and far-right and the liberal opposition forces. With this almost unprecedented scenario, the Arab minority would hold the key to Netanyahu's defeat, a candidate who is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for the genocide in Gaza. However, in a context of strong anti-Arab racism, neither the government nor the opposition wants to reach agreements with the parties that represent them. Last month, the electoral board banned all Arab parties from running in the elections, as well as the communists of the only party that brings together Arabs and Jews. The decision was so discriminatory that the Supreme Court reversed it, but only partially. The United Arab List (Ra'am) will be able to run, as will the Unified List. The candidate from one of their parties, Sami Abu Shehadeh, remains banned. The Jewish communist candidate Ofer Cassif will also be able to run. In contrast, Israeli far-right parties with candidates who are under international sanctions for human rights violations have been able to run without problems.

Israel enters an election campaign with a familiar feeling: politics is once again revolving around Benjamin Netanyahu. But this time the prime minister arrives at the polls after three years that have transformed the country. On October 27, Israelis will vote for the first time since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, which shook Israel and triggered a war that has spread to several fronts, from Gaza and Lebanon to Iran, Syria and Yemen.

A recent report prepared by CIA specialists that has emerged this week shows the concern in Washington regarding the future of Israel. The leak of the report coincides with the third anniversary of the brutal Hamas attack launched from the Gaza Strip which caused the death of nearly 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023.

Three years after the start of Israel's genocidal offensive on Gaza, Dr. Abdelrahman, an orthopedist at one of the few hospitals that remain partially operational in the Strip, explains to ARA the impossible conditions in which they work, without basic tools, with a systematically destroyed healthcare system and a population facing a chronic humanitarian crisis. Before the war, he worked at the Indonesian Hospital, in the north of the Strip, which was put out of service because it is located in the area under the control of the Israeli army. He has moved to the Nasser Medical Complex, in Khan Yunis, the largest one that continues to function in the south of the Palestinian enclave, where the majority of the population has been displaced by bombings on civilian areas.

At 6:29 a.m., Israel came to a standstill. For one minute, the streets fell silent and thousands of people came out to remember those who died three years ago. The country thus began a day that did not have a single stage or a single ceremony. The tribute was spread across the kibbutzim, the rural communities near the border with Gaza, the streets of Tel Aviv, in front of the Parliament in Jerusalem and, above all, in the places where the massacre took shape.

In the Negev desert, near the Gaza Strip, it is hard to imagine that three years ago this place was full of music and dozens of young people dancing until sunrise. Today, at the site where the Nova festival was held there is no music. There are photographs and memorials scattered across the esplanade. A drone flies over the area while Israeli soldiers guard the access points. On one side, 378 trees commemorate the people murdered by Hamas at the festival. The memorial also remembers the 44 attendees who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

The Israeli government has suggested from the very first moment a supposed role of Iran in the incident that last Wednesday forced a change in the route of a plane covering the journey between Dubai and Tel Aviv. The authorities are investigating it as an attempted attack. Without evidence, Benjamin Netanyahu suggested a day after the events that Tehran could be behind it, and the Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, asserted that it was a "jihadist terrorist attack attempt". This Monday, however, the thesis of an Iranian involvement is losing strength: reports from Israel and the United States cited by media such as the BBC point out that the attacker was a "lone wolf".

Directed by Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor –who participated in the making of the Oscar-winningNo other land–, Naza dissects the death machine deployed by the Israeli army to perpetrate the Gaza genocide. The protagonists of the documentary are 24 soldiers who offer direct testimonies of a war campaign executed remotely using artificial intelligence systems. A chronicle of horror that is surprising for the coldness of the chroniclers, who seem detached from the human drama contained in their words. If in the poetic The Profession of Arms Ermanno Olmi illustrated the implications of the appearance of firearms at the beginning of the 16th century, Naza studies with clinical rigor the new martial paradigm in which human beings are reduced to numerical factors or erasable pixels on a digital screen.

In Gaza, returning to school does not necessarily mean returning to a school building. For thousands of children, the new term has begun in tents, courtyards, and temporary learning spaces. There are notebooks and blackboards, but also rubble, displacement, and children who are still queuing to get water before classes begin. Amidst all of this, there is a feeling that for three years had been set aside: the possibility that something might once again resemble life as it was before.

The United Arab Emirates public prosecution confirmed this Saturday that the co-pilot of the Flydubai plane that was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday attacked the pilot inside the cockpit with an emergency axe to try to take control of the aircraft's flight controls and commit a "terrorist attack".

“The Flydubai flight and the indomitability of the Jews”, “The avoided Flydubai tragedy highlights Israeli courage” or “Extraordinary heroism and nearly miraculous circumstances prevent an air catastrophe” are some of the headlines that can be read these days in Israel. Two days after the incident with Flydubai flight FZ1073, the feeling in the country is one of having dodged a tragedy, but also of having discovered a crack in air security, in one of the countries most obsessed with this issue.

He has been described as a "hero" in both India and Israel. Smit Machchhar is the Indian commander who on Wednesday was sharing the cockpit with the pilot who allegedly attempted to crash a plane flying the route between Dubai and Tel Aviv. This Friday, he spoke for the first time after having saved more than 170 lives on Wednesday—when his own life was also in danger, after his cockpit colleague had stabbed him—with a simple gesture: opening a door.

A plane flying this Wednesday from Dubai to Tel Aviv has been diverted to Saudi Arabia after the co-pilot attempted to crash the aircraft, according to reports from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu detailed that the co-pilot, who has been arrested, stabbed the pilot to try to take control of the plane and bring it down. According to Netanyahu, "almost all the passengers were Israeli." There were 174 people on board. Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that the incident was "an attempted jihadist terrorist attack".

At the Tel Aviv Hostages Square, about 300 people listened this Monday evening to testimonies from relatives and survivors of the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. They were wearing t-shirts, caps, and pins with photographs of the hostages. Amidst banners with names and faces, a recreation of a tunnel recalled the conditions in which the kidnapped were held in Gaza. A man dressed as the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, held a banner with a blunt message: "Nobody told me!".The protest comes at a time when the question of what the Israeli government knew before the Hamas attack has returned to the center of Israeli politics. This time the debate passes through Abu Dhabi. On Sunday, the prime minister traveled in secret to the United Arab Emirates to meet with its president, Mohamed bin Zayed. The reason for the visit was to ask him to deny that he had warned him before October 7th that Hamas was preparing an attack, according to sources cited by Associated Press.Netanyahu's office has denied this version and explained that the visit aimed to “strengthen bilateral relations and address regional challenges.” The Emirates government has given a similar version of the visit, without making any mention of a specific request from the Israeli leader.The visit, lasting about four hours and without leaving the airport, as reported by the Israeli media outlet Channel 12, comes amidst weeks of controversy. A few days ago, the newspaper Haaretz published that the Emirates had allegedly alerted Israel that Hamas was preparing a major operation against the country. According to this information, Bin Zayed had personally communicated the warning to Netanyahu, but the notice was not sent to the main Israeli intelligence agencies or the army. Netanyahu denies this version.

There are only a few weeks left until the Israeli legislative elections scheduled for October 27, elections that will determine the country's future for the next four years, and it seems difficult for there to be significant changes in the dynamics of the century-old conflict with the Palestinians. During the long campaign underway, we are witnessing a continuous evolution of attacks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition leaders; a bellicosity that will continue to grow until the polls open and that periodically reaches intense isolated clashes.

Benjamin Netanyahu took to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly this Thursday with a forty-minute speech marked by confrontation. The Israeli prime minister, as expected, defended the military operations against Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, praised Donald Trump, and attacked various countries and the role of international media.

Fadi Elhusseini (1975, Gaza Strip) made his debut this Thursday as the brand-new ambassador of Palestine to Spain, in Madrid, in what was his first public act since presenting his credentials to Felipe VI. The playing field was friendly. First, because he was accompanied by the Minister of Children and Youth, Sira Rego (United Left), who has been and is one of the most forceful voices in the Spanish government against the offensive in Gaza, as was evidenced again this Thursday: "The position of Spanish society [on Palestine] is clear [...]. [Benjamin Netanyahu] is a war criminal," the minister stated.

Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive this Thursday in New York to deliver one of the most delicate speeches of his career before the United Nations General Assembly. It will be a lightning visit: the Israeli prime minister plans to arrive in the United States on the same day as his intervention and return to Israel a few hours later. Unlike other years, no meeting with the US president, Donald Trump, is scheduled.

The complaint against Pilar Rahola for her statements in favor of Israel and her actions in Palestine will not proceed. The Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor's Office has decided to archive it following the pre-trial proceedings it ordered on April 13. The complaint, filed by two militants of the Socialist Youth Organization (OJS), was for crimes of incitement to hatred and complicity in the genocide in Gaza, but the public prosecutor's office considers that there is not enough evidence to continue investigating the journalist. The decision is not subject to appeal, according to the resolution dated this Monday to which ARA has had access.