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    Restoring the Past Won’t Liberate Palestine

    Amid the graphic images, fierce polemics and endless media criticism that have dominated my social media feeds since the war in Gaza began late last year, I noticed a seemingly bizarre subplot emerge: skin cancer in Israel.“You are not Indigenous if your body cannot tolerate the area’s climate,” one such post read, highlighting outdated news coverage claiming that Israelis had unusually high rates of skin cancer. (They do not.) Skin cancer, these posts claimed, was proof that Israeli Jews were not native to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea but are in fact white Europeans with no ancestral connection to the region, enactors of one of the worst crimes of the modern age: settler colonialism.On one level, the claims about skin cancer — like similar ones about Israeli cuisine and surnames — are silly social media talking points from keyboard warriors slinging hashtags, hyped up on theories of liberation based on memes of Frantz Fanon quotes taken out of context. In the context of the ongoing slaughter in Gaza — more than 28,000 people dead, mostly women and children — such posturing may seem trivial. But even, or maybe especially, at this moment, when things are so grim, the way we talk about liberation matters. And I find this kind of talk revealing of a larger trend on the left these days, emanating from important and complex theories in the academy but reflected in crude and reductive forms in the memes and slogans at pro-Palestine protests — an increasingly rigid set of ideas about the interloping colonizer and the Indigenous colonized. In this analysis, there are two kinds of people: those who are native to a land and those who settle it, displacing the original inhabitants. Those identities are fixed, essential, eternal.I have spent much of my life and career living and working among formerly colonized peoples attempting to forge a path for themselves in the aftermath of empire. The rapacious carving up of much of the globe and the genocide and enslavement of millions of people by a handful of European powers for their own enrichment was the great crime of early modernity. The icons who threw off the yoke of colonial oppression — including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru and Fanon — were my childhood heroes, and they remain my intellectual lodestars. But I sometimes struggle to recognize their spirit and ideas in the way we talk about decolonization today, with its emphasis on determining who is and who is not an Indigenous inhabitant of the lands known as Israel and Palestine.A good deal of the antipathy toward Israeli Jews today is undergirded and enabled, I believe, by something that to some ears sounds progressive: the idea that people and lands that have been colonized must be returned to their indigenous peoples and original state. But that belief, when taken literally, is at best a kind of left-wing originalism, a utopian politics that believes the past answers all the questions of the present. At worst it is a left-wing echo to the ancestral fantasies of the far right, in which who is allowed to live in which places is a question of the connection of one’s blood to a particular patch of soil.Implicit in the emphasis on indigeneity is a promised restoration, albeit one of a very different sort from the imperial fantasies of Vladimir Putin or the gender obsessions of Ron DeSantis. Decolonization “is not converting Indigenous politics to a Western doctrine of liberation; it is not a philanthropic process of ‘helping’ the at-risk and alleviating suffering; it is not a generic term for struggle against oppressive conditions and outcomes,” as the scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang write in an influential academic paper published in 2012, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” More

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    Netanyahu Says He Won’t Bow to Pressure to Call Off Rafah Invasion

    The Israeli leader has come under international pressure to drop a threatened incursion into the city where more than a million Palestinians are gathered, seeking refuge from the war.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel insisted on Saturday that Israel would not bow to international pressure to call off its plan for a ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza that is now packed with more than a million Palestinians.Many of the people now in Rafah are displaced and living in schools, tents or the homes of friends and relatives, part of a desperate search for any safe refuge from Israel’s military campaign, which has dragged on for more than four months. Their lives are a daily struggle to find enough food and water to survive.“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are basically telling us: Lose the war,” Mr. Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Saturday evening. “It’s true that there’s a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment that we need to say that we won’t be doing a half or a third of the job.”About the same time as Mr. Netanyahu addressed the news conference, thousands of anti-government protesters filled a central thoroughfare in Tel Aviv — the largest protest against the prime minister in months. They filled the same street where mass protests against Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the country’s judiciary riled the nation before the start of the Israel-Hamas war.Calls for an immediate election rose above a din of air horns. Protesters lit a red flare in the middle of a drum circle while others wielding flags stared down half a dozen police officers on horseback.“The people need to rise up, and the government needs to go,” said one protester, Yuval Lerner, 57. Mr. Lerner said that even before the war, he lost confidence that the government has the nation’s best interest at heart, but “Oct. 7 proved it,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Palestinians Flee as Israeli Forces Raid Nasser Hospital in Gaza

    Israel says Hamas routinely operates within — and beneath — places like Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, using them as shields, and has held Israeli hostages there. The group denies the charges.The Israeli military on Thursday raided the largest hospital still functioning in the Gaza Strip, in what it called a search for Hamas fighters and the bodies of hostages. Many people who had sought shelter there were forced to flee from combat once again. Explosions and gunfire rocked the hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the Nasser Medical Complex, before the predawn raid, killing and wounding several people including at least one doctor and a patient, according to a doctor there, as well as the charity Doctors Without Borders, which had staff members at the hospital, and Gaza health authorities. The specific casualty claims, like many assertions in the conflict, could not be immediately confirmed.Videos posted on social media on Thursday and voice messages sent by doctors during the night, both before and after Israeli forces smashed through the perimeter wall and entered the compound, depicted scenes of chaos and fear inside the damaged, smoke-filled hospital, punctuated by automatic gunfire, explosions and shouting.Health care workers shared videos of a chaotic scene at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops raided the hospital and ordered people to evacuate.Obtained by ReutersOne video, verified by The New York Times, showed damage to the hospital and injured people being rushed through a smoke-filled corridor among debris amid sounds of gunfire. Witnesses said people by the hundreds — possibly thousands — later stood in long lines as Israeli troops screened them, a few at a time, for evacuation.The Israeli military said it had detained dozens of people, but did not say who or why.“We have credible intelligence from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser hospital facility,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a video statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Hundreds Flee One of Gaza’s Last Working Hospitals, Fearing Israeli Attack

    Hundreds of displaced Palestinians fled one of the Gaza Strip’s last functioning hospitals on Wednesday, after the Israeli military ordered them to leave and threatened further action to stop what it said was Hamas activity there.Thousands of Gazans have sheltered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern city of Khan Younis for weeks, and many are terrified that Israeli forces will bombard or storm the complex, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there. Previous Israeli warnings to evacuate hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the largest in Gaza, have often preceded military raids.Hanin Abu Tiba, 27, an English teacher sheltering at the hospital, described dire conditions inside, with food running out and aid convoys all but unable to deliver supplies. In text messages overnight, she said that she had seen an Israeli military vehicle outside the hospital gate.“I’m terrified to leave the hospital and get shot,” she said. But inside the complex, she said, “the electricity is cutting out, and the water, and the canned food is almost gone. We don’t know what to do.”Dr. Abu Lehya, in a WhatsApp message on Wednesday, called conditions at the hospital “beyond imagination.”The tensions at the hospital played out as Israel carried out extensive airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in response to a deadly rocket attack on northern Israel. The rocket attack struck a military base near the city of Safed, killing a soldier and wounding eight people, the Israeli authorities said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia allied with Hamas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Hundreds Flee Nasser Hospital in Gaza After Israel Orders Evacuation

    Hundreds of displaced Palestinians were fleeing a major hospital in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to doctors and videos from the scene, after Israeli forces ordered them to leave and threatened military action to stop what it said was Hamas activity at the hospital.Thousands of Gazans have been sheltering at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis for weeks, having been forced to flee their homes and other parts of Gaza by Israel’s intense bombardment of the territory and military orders to leave their towns and cities. Hospitals have become places of refuge during the war, even as they have often become a focus of Israel’s military offensive.Inside Nasser, which is one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, there was terror that Israeli forces would bombard or storm the complex, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there. Previous Israeli warnings to evacuate hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the largest in Gaza, have often preceded military raids on the facilities.“The situation is very difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult,” Dr. Abu Lehya said in a WhatsApp message Wednesday morning. “It’s beyond the imagination or description.”An injured person arriving at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in December. The hospital is one of the last functioning medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.Yousef Masoud for The New York TimesA video shared on social media on Wednesday and verified by The New York Times shows crowds of people carrying belongings and bedding leaving the hospital as explosions are heard in the background. The Israeli military called for those sheltering to evacuate but said it had not called on patients and medical staff to leave the hospital.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Hezbollah Attack Injures 2 Israelis Amid Fresh Push to Reduce Tensions

    Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, fired missiles into northern Israel on Tuesday that injured at least two people, emergency officials said, amid a fresh diplomatic push to end months of clashes along the border.Hezbollah said that it had launched two separate attacks into Israel — one aimed at Israeli soldiers and the other at a police building in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona.A 15-year-old boy and a 47-year-old woman were seriously wounded in Kiryat Shmona, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s nonprofit emergency medical service. They had gotten out of the car they were traveling in when an anti-tank missile hit nearby, only to be injured when another landed, said Ofir Yehezkeli, Kiryat Shmona’s deputy mayor.Israel and Hezbollah — an ally of Hamas in Gaza — have engaged in near-daily cross-border strikes since the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7. attacks in Israel. The clashes have displaced more than 150,000 people from their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.The United States and others have engaged in diplomatic efforts to reduce the tensions. A Western diplomat said on Tuesday that France had presented a proposal to Israel, Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah. The French proposal was first reported by Reuters.The proposal details a 10-day process of de-escalation and calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters to a distance of 10 kilometers (six miles) from Lebanon’s border with Israel, according to the diplomat, who is involved in the talks and who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations. The diplomat said that France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, presented the proposal in writing to Lebanon’s government last week while on a visit to the country.Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the government had received the proposal. The French Foreign Ministry and Hezbollah did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In recent weeks, Israel has warned that unless a diplomatic solution is reached, it would have to use military force to stop Hezbollah’s attacks in order to allow for tens of thousands of Israelis to return to their homes.Patrick Kingsley More

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    A Tunnel Offers Clues to How Hamas Uses Gaza’s Hospitals

    Gaza’s hospitals have emerged as a focal point in Israel’s war with Hamas, with each side citing how the other has pulled the facilities into the conflict as proof of the enemy’s disregard for the safety of civilians. In four months of war, Israeli troops have entered several hospitals, including the Qatari Hospital, Kamal Adwan […] More

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    Dozens Killed in Rafah During Israeli Hostage Rescue, Gazan Officials Say

    Palestinians in Rafah described a night of fear as Israeli strikes pummeled the area early Monday, killing and wounding dozens, according to the Gazan health ministry, and highlighting the cost of Israel’s military operation to free its hostages.“I swear to God it was an indescribable night,” said Ghada al-Kurd, 37, who is among more than a million people sheltering in the southern Gaza city. “The bombing was everywhere — we were convinced that the Israeli army was invading Rafah.”Israel’s military said early Monday that it had conducted a “wave of attacks” on Rafah to provide cover for soldiers who freed two hostages held by Hamas. The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 67 people had been killed in the strikes, and that the toll was likely to rise. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.Dr. Marwan al-Hamase, the director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, said that the hospital had received 100 injured people overnight, along with the bodies of 52 who were killed. Maher Abu Arar, a spokesman for the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah, said the hospital had taken in at least 15 bodies and 50 wounded people. “There were a lot of body parts,” said Mr. Abu Arar, following “successive and sudden” Israeli strikes.Ms. al-Kurd said that people in Rafah were panicking and considered evacuating during the night, but “no one knew where to even go.” She added in a voice message that her young nieces “were crying and I was trying to calm them down,” even though she was also “very scared.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More