On this day, March 18th, Israeli PM Netanyahu resumed the shelling of Gaza. He deliberately stalled the Phase 2 of the hostage release so that he and his cronies (including war criminal Gallant) can stay in power with the backing of the US and far-right Israeli coalition members like Ben-Gvir. Both Netanyahu and Gallant have a warrant for their arrests from the ICC, a warrant that Canada, Spain, Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, South Africa, and the Netherlands will enforce.

Netanyahu said on numerous occasions that the war would not end until Hamas is destroyed. A ceasefire with Hamas would either suggest a significant policy reversal or Israeli subterfuge.

Phase 2 of the 2025 ceasefire would have ensure that all male Israelis would be returned (including POWs). According to the Israeli government, there are two dozen remaining male Israeli detainees. There are hundreds of Palestinian detainees held without trial in administrative detention. The former ME assistant to the SecDef Dana Stroul says:

“Hamas wants to proceed to the second phase of the cease-fire because it sees that as the way to end the war and get long-term relief from military pressure,” added Ms. Stroul, who is now research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is exactly why Israel does not want to proceed to the second phase — Hamas is still an intact organization, even though it is currently diminished.”

To increase the pressure on Hamas, Israel halted all humanitarian aid deliveries and cut off electricity provision to Gaza to pressure Hamas, and Israel has the backing of the Trump administration for those moves, she said.

As for the military pretext, a spokesman for the Israeli military admitted that these were pre-emptive strikes based on intel that Hamas was preparing another terrorist attack.

A spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel struck in Gaza to prevent planned attacks on Israelis. “Upon receiving indications that Hamas was actively planning and preparing to carry out further terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians” and soldiers, the military “launched a series of preemptive strikes against Hamas terror targets in Gaza.”

This isn't just anti-Zionist or "hamas propaganda," since pro-Zionist Israeli opposition leaders are saying this too. Last year, the then-Majority Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer (a Zionist) called for new elections in Israel, as he believes that Netanyahu is turning Israel into a pariah state.

Here is how the IDF, the most moral army in the world, treats its Palestinian detainees:

U.S. decries reported sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners after graphic video aired on Israeli TV

A report released Monday by B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based Israeli human rights group, alleged there was “repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity, by soldiers or prison guards against Palestinian detainees as an additional punitive measure,” citing witnesses who described “blows to the genitals,” “the use of metal tools and batons to cause genital pain,” and “cases of gang sexual violence and assault committed by a group of prison guards or soldiers.”

One detainee cited by B’Tselem described an attempt by a member of the Israel Prison Service’s Initial Reaction Force to sodomize him with a carrot, while others recorded the act on their cellphones.

“I screamed in pain and terror,” the testimony read. “It went on like that for about three minutes.” The detainee, who was taken into custody in 2022, said the incident occurred on Oct. 29, 2023.

The detentions have spiked since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead, and saw 240 kidnapped, some of whom are believed to have been sexually abused. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’ incursion, some 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the enclave’s health officials, many thousand more have been injured and an overwhelming majority of the strip’s population driven from their homes.

A report released in April by the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian aid, UNRWA, also detailed cases of sexual abuse by Israeli forces against detainees, including sodomizing them with “something like a hot metal stick.”

In May, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, called on Israel to investigate torture and other inhumane treatment, including sexual abuse, of Palestinian detainees.

Male detainees (including a 12-year-old) in the Gaza Strip have been forced to strip to their underwear and crammed tightly into cargo trucks (BBC video link, Reuters report). Israel claimed that all detainees are "military-aged men"

Please keep Gaza and all detainees in your hearts.