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⚡️ News from Gaza & Israel update for July 2 includes reactions to the Bill which would halt the Muslim Friday call to prayer, reactions from the Bill to halt enlistment for Torah Readers, information about waterborne diseases and other issues affecting Gaza.
🔹 Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen declared Israel would continue expanding its military grip over the Gaza Strip until it achieved 100% control, boasting that Israel’s stranglehold on the territory had surged from 53% to almost 70% in two months.
🔹 Cohen said that Israeli forces would not allow any form of Palestinian resistance to emerge, confirming that the tightening of the chokehold in the area is likely to accelerate.
🔹 However, a separate report suggested that Uganda is holding talks to join the planned International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in Gaza, with discussions also underway with Vietnam and Georgia, while Morocco, Indonesia, Kosovo, Albania, and Kazakhstan, have already committed troops.
🔹 The Hind Rajab Foundation not only filed a case in the US in an attempt to prosecute and prevent Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from travelling to a UNSC meeting this month, but also filed an appeal before the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, after authorities refused to open an investigation into Sean Gor, an Israeli resident studying dentistry in Lithuania, despite reports linking him to war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
🔹 The foundation said that Gor served in the ‘Vampire Company’ (the 52nd Battalion, 401st Brigade) of the Israeli Army, a unit accused of participating in the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including the UNRWA headquarters, the attack on the Al-Shifa medical complex, and the killing of Hind Rajab, her family, and two paramedics in Gaza.
🔹 After the Lithuanian prosecution and courts rejected to open a formal criminal investigation, the foundation argued that the refusal violated Lithuania’s constitution and its international obligations, as it allowed a suspect in genocide and war crimes to reside and study without legal prosecution.
🔹 The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that more than 9,300 cases of waterborne diseases had been recorded in the Gaza Strip within just two weeks, as the temperatures heat up and residents seek drinking water.
🔹 Cases were reported across more than 130 health facilities amid the continued collapse of the healthcare system and the worsening environmental and living conditions, raising the growing concern over the spread of infectious diseases under incredibly strained public health conditions.
🔹 Speaking about the recent funding request of $100 million to aid UNRWA work in Lebanon and Gaza by the UN Secretary-General, the US representative to the UN Jeff Barros claimed that the UN member states were ‘funding incitement, terrorism, and stagnation through their commitment to UNRWA, calling for support for the Board of Peace established by Trump for the Gaza Strip.’
🔹 In response to the statement, the official account of the Board of Peace on X posted: “UNRWA has no place in the new Gaza. We are turning the page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency and conflict. The people of Gaza deserve better.’
🔹 UK’s Independent MP for Islington North and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the UK Foreign Office Minister to take action to halt Israel’s illegal settlement expansion plans in the occupied West Bank, but rather than addressing the issue, the Minister responded with a baseless accusation of antisemitism.
🔹 France warned that companies engaging in business activities in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Golan Heights could face legal, financial, and reputational risks.
🔹 The French Foreign Ministry reiterated that such settlements are illegal and violate the UN resolutions and 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, also noting that companies involved in settlement-related attacks could be listed in Human Rights databases, and must comply with labelling rules for products originating from occupied territories.
🔹 Ben-Gvir visited East Jerusalem on Wednesday to observe the Palestinian homes being reduced to rubble, demanding that even more homes are flattened under Israel’s discriminatory policies of forced displacement.
🔹 PM Netanyahu addressed the agreement signed with Lebanon at the weekend, saying: “Thanks to our strength that is changing the face of the Middle East, a door has opened to a different reality,” adding: “We have taken an important step towards ending the conflict.”
🔹 Gadi Eisenkot said in an interview that a month after the war, coalition MPs had approached to talk about the possibility of a constructive ‘no-confidence’ vote in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that they were keen to appoint Eisenkot as head for a ‘short period to save Israel.’
🔹 Eisenkot also referred to PM Netanyahu’s comments from the previous evening, where Bibi stated he had entered Iran twice to save Israel from the destruction of atomic bombs, which they already had, claiming: “Netanyahu said bizarre things yesterday with very disturbing arrogance,” and added that he is “inventing reality, inventing a threat, to scare the Israeli public.”
🔹 Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also commented on the remarks from PM Netanyahu that stated Iran already had an atomic bomb, saying it was a lie: “He is engineering the story,” he said.
🔹 The IDF published a video showing four different operations to take out Hamas operatives, with one clip showing passing vehicles by a man walking a street, claiming that they were Hamas operatives advancing attacks on troops, and all posed an ‘immediate threat’ to forces.
🔹 An attempt to pass the ‘Muezzin Law,’ which prevents the Friday morning Muslim call to prayer, was brought before the plenum, with Shas expressing regret that Minister Ben-Gvir hadn’t also brought the law to prevent Red Cross visits because they’d have voted on that too.
🔹 However, the Haredim were splitting to approve the law so they didn’t break a deal with the Arabs, meaning that the Shas would participate, but the United Torah Judaism party would be absent so as not to break their word, and the law passed the preliminary hearing.
🔹 The Ra’am Party were still furious over the Shas decision to support the Muezzin Law, with chairman Mansour Abbas saying the decision to support a ‘racist anti-religious law’ is very disappointing and disgraceful: “We expected a religious party to be guided by the spirit of the verse – ‘You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt!’”
🔹 Having gone to a vote, the preliminary reading passed by a majority of 50 to 36, and now moves forward to additional readings before potentially becoming law.
🔹 The new Basic Law of Disgracing the Torah also passed a first reading on Wednesday, displeasing Naftali Bennett, who said that with the establishment of a new government, the law would be cancelled immediately.
🔹 “Evasion is the opposite of unity because evasion tears the nation apart from within and prevents victory,” Bennett said: “The IDF desperately needs 20,000 soldiers, yet today the Bibi-Der-Smotrich coalition said again that political interests are more important than security.”
🔹 MK Avigdor Lieberman of the Israel Beiteinu Party said in order to maintain the bloc, Netanyahu is willing to dismantle the IDF and the entire Israeli society: “The Basic Law of Desecration of God’s Name will remain forever as a mark of Cain on the coalition of the October 7 massacres,” Lieberman said.
🔹 Eisenkot slammed the decision: “They prefer the survival of the government over the resilience of the IDF,” he argued, while Moshe Gafni said the Jewish people’s state restored the honour of the Torah ‘to its rightful place.’
🔹 The Forum of Reservist Women also slammed the vote, saying that at a time when reservist families are coping with an unprecedented burden, it is expected of the government to place the needs of the families of the servicemen at the top of the priority list: “The approval of the law in the first reading clearly reflects the priorities of the decision-makers,” they said.
🔹 MK Moshe Solomon from Religious Zionism took to X to explain that he didn’t vote for the law because he’d participated in hundreds of funerals and condolences over the previous three years, and was exposed to the people of Israel and its heroes in all their glory: “There are many ways to elevate the foundation of the Torah, but controversial legislation that comes with the opposite intention to the fulfillment of the Torah is not the way,” he wrote.
🔹 Chairman of Shas, Aryeh Deri, said the law’s approval in the first reading is a historic correction and recognition of the State of Israel of the supreme value of the Torah and the status of Torah scholars, who bear on their shoulders the spiritual existence of the people of Israel.
🔹 Ben Gurion Airport is expected to see record numbers of passengers not seen for a long time on Thursday, following clearance of US military refuelling aircraft this week to make way for passenger flights, and around 85,000 passengers on international flights are expected this weekend, while a Lufthansa plane landed on Wednesday for the first time since Operation Roaring Lion began.
🔹 Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, has sent an official letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council, strongly condemning remarks by Defence Minister Israel Katz.
🔹 In the letter, Iravani ‘strongly warned against the public threat issued by the Israeli war minister against the Leader of the Revolution and the Republic,’ which came after Katz said that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had a bullseye on his head and is ‘marked for death.’
🔹 Sources: N12, Channel 12, Yediot Ahronot, The Cradle, Quds, Al Mayadeen, Kan News, i24 News, Channel 14, Tasnim News, IRNA, Mehr News, SettlersFW,
