🚨Smotrich: Gaza Aid Is Just Enough to Avoid ‘War Crimes’ Charges While We ‘Annihilate’ the Strip
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gave a speech Monday defending Israel’s strategy of mass devastation in Gaza, saying humanitarian aid is only being allowed in “so the world does not stop us and accuse us of war crimes.” The goal, he insisted, is to “conquer, clear, and stay” until Gaza is dismantled beyond recognition.
▪️ On aid, Smotrich said only the care minimum will be allowed: “A few bakeries distributing pitas… a daily portion of cooked food. Citizens in Gaza will get a pita and a plate of food, and that’s it. That’s exactly what we see in the videos—people standing in line, waiting for a plate of soup.” The purpose, he admitted, is not relief but optics: “It allows the world to continue providing us with international protection.”
▪️ “We are annihilating everything that remains in the Strip,” he declared, “simply because it is one big city of terror.” He described the new military strategy as one of permanent occupation: “No more raids with ins and outs… we are conquering, clearing, and staying until Hamas is destroyed.”
▪️ He welcomed the shift toward targeting Gaza’s civil infrastructure: “The IDF is finally conducting a campaign against the civilian rule of Hamas… eliminating ministers, officials, money changers, and figures in the economic and governmental apparatus.”
▪️ Boasting of the scale of destruction, Smotrich said: “We are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins with unprecedented destruction, and the world still hasn’t stopped us.”
▪️ He added that, personally, he would prefer a total blockade: “Until the last of the hostages returns, we should also not let water into the Gaza Strip.”
▪️ Smotrich endorsed ethnic cleansing as official policy: “The population will reach the south of the Strip, and from there, God willing, to third countries, as part of President Trump’s plan.”
➡️ Drop Site’s @JeremyScahill unpacks all this and more in his latest report: “Gaza Aid Scheme Offers Israel Symbolic Cover to Finish the Genocide.” Link in reply.
🚨URGENT: The Israeli military has just bombed the generator of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza.
Electricity has now been cut off. There are still 44 patients inside, including one in intensive care on a ventilator, all in urgent need of life-saving care.
The hospital is now relying on a damaged solar power system, which once covered 80% of its needs but can no longer meet demand after previous Israeli attacks.
Yesterday, Israeli forces laid siege to the facility and opened fire, wounding an ICU patient, before pulling back a short distance—while still maintaining the siege. More details in the linked post below.
Leen is one of 55 people trapped inside the besieged Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. She is calling on the International Red Cross to intervene and evacuate them before it’s too late, warning they could be killed by Israeli forces if help doesn’t arrive.
THREAD: “Hamas Says Witkoff Personally Promised to Lift Gaza Blockade in Exchange for Edan Alexander”
The U.S. immediately broke the deal, senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Drop Site’s @JeremyScahill.
Read on for key takeaways from Drop Site’s latest:
🧵🔽
1/ On A Direct “Deal” with Trump’s Envoy Steve Witkoff
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Hamas was promised that, two days after releasing U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander, the U.S. would lift the Gaza blockade and push for negotiations to end the war.
“Trump will speak out thanking Hamas for its gesture, obliging Israel on the second day to open the borders and allow aid to come into Gaza, and [Trump would] call for an immediate ceasefire and to go for negotiations to end the war.”
Alexander, a U.S. citizen and Israeli soldier, was released as a “gesture of goodwill”—and an attempt to break the 76-day total blockade.
“[Trump] did nothing of this,” Naim said. “They didn’t violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.”
2/ On The Trump Team’s Approach To Negotiations
Naim, who previously met directly with U.S. envoy Adam Boehler, said the Trump team often sends contradictory and unpredictable messages.
“Sometimes we hear a positive reply or something indicating forward progress in their vision, but suddenly they go back to the same Israeli narrative, to the Israeli conditions.”
“Like the stock markets, you have to keep watching minute for minute to be sure that you are going to win something at the end,” he told Drop Site.
Breaking: ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan was placed on administrative leave following reports of sexual abuse and retaliation by @DropSiteNews and WSJ.
Earlier this week, the President of ASP, which oversees the court, called on Khan to resign, but he declined.
Thread by @alicesperi here⬇️
In a statement, the court said "the Prosecutor communicated his decision to take leave until the end of the OIOS (UN Office of Internal Oversight Services) process."
Sources said he was forced to step down. The two deputy prosecutors will take over in the meantime.
In an email to staff, Khan wrote he has been "fully cooperating" with the investigation, and that his decision is driven to his "commitment to the credibility" of the office. "As I have often said: the victims are the true owners of our work. Our responsibility is to them."
In his newest Drop Site investigation, “As Trump Declares ‘Golden Era’ in the Arab Gulf, Gaza Burns and Netanyahu Threatens to Wipe Palestinians Off the Map,” @JeremyScahill lays out three possible scenarios:
➤ Trump ends the war
➤ Trump backs the genocide
➤ A temporary truce
Details below: 🔽
2/ SCENARIO 1: Trump ends the war
Trump uses U.S. leverage to stop Israel’s genocidal assault, forces a full withdrawal, and launches serious negotiations.
▪️ This is what Hamas proposes.
▪️ It’s also what Gulf monarchs say they’ll support.
▪️ If Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize—this is his best shot.
But it’s also the least likely.
3/ Trump has the power to stop the slaughter—but hasn’t used it.
▪️ He continues sending weapons.
▪️ He praises Netanyahu.
▪️ He’s floated a plan to turn Gaza into a “freedom zone” with no Palestinians.
So far, the bombs keep falling—and Gaza keeps burning.
🚨BREAKING: Hamas says it is ready to release American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander as part of steps toward a ceasefire, aid access, and an end to the war in Gaza.
The full statement by Dr. Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas in Gaza and its negotiating delegation, is below:
——
Press Statement:
As part of the efforts being made by our mediator brothers to achieve a ceasefire, Hamas has been in contact with the US administration over the past few days. The movement has expressed a high degree of positivity, and the release of Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a dual US citizen, will be part of the steps being taken to achieve a ceasefire, open the crossings, and allow aid and relief to reach our people in the Gaza Strip.
The movement affirms its readiness to immediately begin intensive negotiations and exert serious efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war, exchange prisoners by mutual consent, and administer the Gaza Strip to an independent, professional body. This will ensure continued calm and stability for many years, along with reconstruction and an end to the blockade.
The movement appreciates the tireless efforts made by our mediator brothers in the sisterly State of Qatar and the Arab Republic of Egypt, as well as our brothers in Türkiye, throughout the past period.
Dr. Khalil al-Hayya
Head of Hamas in Gaza
Head of the Negotiating Delegation
Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas
Sunday: 13 Dhu al-Qi'dah 1446 AH
Corresponding to: May 11, 2025 AD
Since late February Hamas has made clear it was willing to release Edan Alexander as a “goodwill gesture” toward the U.S. as part of a process where Israel is pushed to return to a deal framework that ends the genocide. Hamas officials have said they treated Alexander’s case as a high priority in the context of direct talks with U.S. officials.
Alexander, 21, is believed to be the last living American-Israeli captive held in Gaza. Born in Tel Aviv and raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, he returned to Israel after high school to enlist in the IDF’s Golani Brigade—the brigade responsible for executing 15 paramedics and rescue workers in Rafah in late March 2025, and linked to numerous other war crimes documented by Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi (@ytirawi).
BREAKING: ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan was interviewed this week in a formal investigation about alleged sexual abuse.
As the scandal unfolded over the past year, he requested a string of high-profile arrest warrants—including for Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Staff say they were taken by surprise, the cases were not yet trial ready, and that Khan used them to distract from the abuse allegations and protect his position.
Here’s what @alicesperi uncovered in a 6-month investigation for Drop Site: 🧵⬇️
2. Karim Khan became the face of the ICC’s most explosive case ever—seeking the arrest of Israeli leaders for war crimes, including the starvation of civilians in Gaza.
But inside the court, staff say he accelerated the case to distract from a serious sexual abuse allegation, instructing his staff to do the "impossible" to get it out quickly.
3. Sources said the ICC's warrant applications for Netanyahu and Gallant were not up to the typical standard, which required evidence be “trial ready” before warrants were sought. The case against Netanyahu was assembled in “record time,” one person said, noting that “these cases require massive amounts of preparation” and the evidence assembled might not “stand up under scrutiny.”
“You can have a situation that deserves to be prosecuted… and also have a megalomaniac who has himself done something wrong,” one ICC official told Drop Site.