US Ties Israeli Judicial Overhaul with Settlements in Palestinian Territories

Palestinians confront Israeli forces during a protest against a new settlement near Ramallah on March 10. (Reuters)
Palestinians confront Israeli forces during a protest against a new settlement near Ramallah on March 10. (Reuters)
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US Ties Israeli Judicial Overhaul with Settlements in Palestinian Territories

Palestinians confront Israeli forces during a protest against a new settlement near Ramallah on March 10. (Reuters)
Palestinians confront Israeli forces during a protest against a new settlement near Ramallah on March 10. (Reuters)

The US administration of US President Joe Biden welcomed the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay action on the judicial overhaul.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the Israeli decision is the best path for Israel and all its citizens to find this compromise.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu's conservative government has attempted to push through reforms to the judiciary that would effectively allow the government to choose judges of the country's top court.

After coming under much street pressure and international criticism, the PM decided to halt the reform and called for compromise talks with the center-left opposition.

A spokesman for the US State Department, Vedant Patel, said the move was "an opportunity to create additional time and space for compromise," adding, "we continue to strongly urge Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible."

Patel noted that "democratic societies are strengthened by checks and balances, and fundamental changes to a democratic system should be pursued with the broadest base of popular support."

In response to the accusations that Washington somehow funded the protests against Netanyahu's government, the spokesman asserted that these claims are "completely and demonstrably false."

"The Movement of Quality Government is an NGO, and it received a modest grant from the State Department initiated during the previous administration."

He explained that the latest disbursal of funds came in September of 2022, before the most recent Israeli elections, indicating that "the department supports a wide range of programming by civil society actors around the world on strengthening awareness for human rights and democratic values."

The cautious statements reflect the Biden administration's aim to maintain communication with Netanyahu amid efforts by US officials to calm the tensions and violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

CIA Director William Burns recently warned that a third intifada could break out.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are pushing hard to approve the judicial overhaul and maintain settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that some measures make it "hard or maybe futile" for the United States to mediate between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Blinken said: "I can say that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority want us to be involved and engaged in helping and supporting and working with them to try to get to this period of calm."

He added: "At some point if either or both sides are not doing what we believe is necessary to get there, it will be hard or maybe futile for us to do that."

The right-wing Israeli government recently introduced legislation that would pave the way for the re-establishment of settlements in the occupied West Bank nearly 20 years after their disbandment.

A group of 92 US lawmakers sent a letter to Biden urging him to clarify that the US opposes any Israeli attempts to annex lands in the West Bank.

"Stripping the judiciary of its check on the governing coalition would empower far-right lawmakers seeking to entrench settlement of the West Bank and advance a pro-annexation agenda, undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and threatening Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state," the lawmakers wrote.



Lancet Study Estimates Gaza Death Toll 40% Higher Than Recorded

Palestinians walk through the destruction in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians walk through the destruction in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Lancet Study Estimates Gaza Death Toll 40% Higher Than Recorded

Palestinians walk through the destruction in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians walk through the destruction in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Research published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory's health ministry.

The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.

Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the war.

However, the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time, AFP reported.

The study's best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.

That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza's pre-war population, "or approximately one in 35 inhabitants," the study said.

The UK-led group of researchers estimated that 59 percent of the deaths were women, children and the elderly.

The toll was only for deaths from traumatic injuries, so did not include deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.

AFP is unable to independently verify the death toll.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of war.

In Israel, the 2023 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry's figures, but the United Nations have said they are reliable.

- 'A good estimate' -

The researchers used a statistical method called "capture-recapture" that has previously been used to estimate the death toll in conflicts around the world.

The analysis used data from three different lists, the first provided by the Gaza health ministry of the bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.

The second list was from an online survey launched by the health ministry in which Palestinians reported the deaths of relatives.

The third was sourced from obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.

"We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and the hospital," lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told AFP.

The researchers scoured the lists, searching for duplicates.

"Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on the overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed," Jamaluddine said.

Patrick Ball, a statistician at the US-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group not involved in the research, has used capture-recapture methods to estimate death tolls for conflicts in Guatemala, Kosovo, Peru and Colombia.

Ball told AFP the well-tested technique has been used for centuries and that the researchers had reached "a good estimate" for Gaza.

Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at Britain's Open University, told AFP there was "inevitably a lot of uncertainty" when making estimates from incomplete data.

But he said it was "admirable" that the researchers had used three other statistical analysis approaches to check their estimates.

"Overall, I find these estimates reasonably compelling, he added.

- 'Criticism' expected from both sides -

The researchers cautioned that the hospital lists do not always provide the cause of death, so it was possible that people with non-traumatic health problems -- such as a heart attack -- could have been included, potentially leading to an overestimate.

However, there were other ways that the war's toll could still be underestimated.

The study did not include missing people. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said that around 10,000 missing Gazans are thought to be buried under rubble.

There are also indirect ways that war can claim lives, such as a lack of healthcare, food, water, sanitation or the spread of disease. All have stricken Gaza since October 2023.

In a contentious, non-peer-reviewed letter published in The Lancet in July, another group of researchers used the rate of indirect deaths seen in other conflicts to suggest that 186,000 deaths could eventually be attributed to the Gaza war.

The new study suggested that this projection "might be inappropriate due to obvious differences in the pre-war burden of disease" in Gaza compared to conflicts in countries such as Burundi and East Timor.

Jamaluddine said she expected that "criticism is going to come from different sides" about the new research.

She spoke out against the "obsession" of arguing about death tolls, emphasizing that "we already know that there is a lot of high mortality.”