International and Israeli newspapers said that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are frustrated by US President-elect Donald Trump’s statements about the hell that will result if the prisoners are not released, and they said that Israel committed mistakes during the war.
The New York Times spoke of “a state of frustration among the residents of Gaza because of Trump’s threat to bring hell to the Middle East if the hostages (prisoners) are not released.”
The newspaper said that the residents of the Gaza Strip are wondering about the hell that Trump is talking about after what is happening now in Gaza. According to the newspaper, Gazans say that they have been killing for 15 months, and that they have gone through two cold winters in tents, in addition to the non-stop bombing everywhere.
Military pressure will not resolve the war
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth also published an article by former general Giora Eiland in which he said that Israel “committed mistakes in Gaza,” stressing that military pressure “is not enough to win the war.”
According to Eiland, military pressure “achieves the first war goal of damaging Hamas’ military power, but it does not achieve the other two goals of returning all the hostages and toppling the Hamas government.”
The writer believes that waging war without discussing the relationship between its goals and the appropriate means to achieve them is a traditional mistake throughout history, adding, “This is what happened in Gaza.”
As for the “Jerusalem Post”, it discussed the ongoing conflict between Defense Minister Yisrael Katz and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi over the attack of October 7, 2023. It said that this conflict “weakens Israeli national security.”
The newspaper believes that Katz’s actions and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s failure to allow an investigation into its handling of the events “deepen the mistrust and frustration of many within the army and the public alike.”
In the newspaper “Haaretz”, Amos Harel said that the ultimate goal of the state of conflict between the Minister of Defense and senior officials in the Israeli army is to dismiss the Chief of Staff and the Director of the Shin Bet from their positions.
Harel added that this matter “allows Netanyahu to hold them fully responsible for the attack of October 7, 2023, on the one hand, and to whitewash his image on the other hand.”
In a follow-up to developments in Syria, an article in the National Interest magazine said that there is now an urgent need to reform the US sanctions regime on Syria after the dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The article pointed out that the Syrian people suffered harshly for a long time from the effects of sanctions that paralyzed the economy and led to the spread of black market activity and nepotism.
Trump’s intimidation of allies
In an interview with the Times newspaper, Sebastian Gorka, head of counterterrorism in the Donald Trump administration, said that the British government must respect its commitment to the fight against ISIS by repatriating dozens of British members of the organization who are in prisons in northeastern Syria.
The newspaper considered that this statement “is the latest indication that the elected Trump administration is adopting a sharp approach towards allies.”
Finally, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled “Donald Trump’s bully pulpit diplomacy.”
The newspaper said that the president-elect “caused a media uproar because of his statements about annexing Canada, Panama, and Greenland to the United States,” and added that Trump “often prefers to speak in a harsh tone.”
The newspaper believed that intimidating America’s friends “does not help in confronting the real enemies,” and said that the trick is that “we do not know whether Trump is serious or not.”