Limited internet, phone access restored in Gaza after generators get fuel

The Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel says Friday that phone and internet services were partially working again across Gaza, after fuel was delivered to restart generators that power the networks.

NetBlocks, a group tracking internet outages, confirmed that “internet connectivity is being partially restored” in the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Paltel announced that all communication services, including landline connection, mobile network and Internet connection, dropped due to a lack of fuel.

The next day, Israel agreed to allow two tanker trucks of fuel, equaling 60,000 liters (15,850 gallons), into the Gaza Strip each day.

A US State Department official said 10,000 liters of the daily intake will be used to power the enclave’s communications network.

Before this week, Israel had completely prohibited fuel from entering Gaza, fearing that inbound fuel could be commandeered by Hamas.

5 Palestinians said killed in strike in West Bank’s Balata refugee camp

The Palestinian Red Crescent says five people were killed in a strike on a building in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Palestinian reports say the attack was an Israeli drone strike at the Fatah headquarters in the camp.

Haaretz reports that four of those killed were affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, citing “hospital testimonies.”

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades confirms one of the gunmen killed in the Balata airstrike is a commander belonging to the group. pic.twitter.com/xTa2eWNKKQ

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) November 17, 2023

Ynet reports that among the five killed was a terrorist who killed an Israeli man in a shooting attack on a West Bank road Thursday early this month, sparking a manhunt for the assailants and revenge attacks by settlers, amid spiking tensions in the territory. Elhanan Klein, 29, was killed as he was returning from army reserve duty to his home in the settlement of Einav in the northern West Bank on November 2. Medics found him dead in his car, which crashed and overturned on the side of Route 557 near the Palestinian town of Bayt Lid, northwest of Nablus.

Earlier Friday, the IDF said troops had killed seven Palestinian gunmen in two separate incidents throughout the West Bank.

IDF says missile launched from Lebanon intercepted by air defenses

The IDF says air defenses “successfully intercepted” a surface-to-air missile launched from Lebanese territory at a remotely manned military aircraft, prompting air raid sirens to go off in northern Israel.

The alerts were triggered by the interceptions, the military said in a brief announcement, adding that “no crossing into Israeli territory was detected.”

Elon Musk says calls for genocide like ‘from the river to the sea’ to result in suspension

Elon Musk says X users who deploy the terms “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and other “similar euphemisms” that “necessarily imply genocide” will be suspended from the platform.

“Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension,” Musk tweets.

“Anyone calling for a genocide of any people will be suspended,” Musk replies to a user who asks, “So many influential accounts here support Hamas’ massacre. Will you suspend them?”

In his post Friday, he quote-tweeted a post from two days ago that said “Yes, ‘decolonization’ necessarily implies a Jewish genocide, thus it is unacceptable to any reasonable person.”

It came in response to a user for wrote that “‘decolonization’ is the woke version of jihad, and it should be viewed and treated that way.”

The tweets came two days after Musk faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post on X that accused Jewish people of driving hatred against white people.

“You have said the actual truth,” Musk responded from his personal account on X.

Musk has faced multiple accusations that hate rhetoric and antisemitism have grown significantly on X since he took over the company in 2022, as well as accusations of having using antisemitic tropes himself. Global antisemitism has spiked after war erupted between Israel and Hamas when the terror group carried out a devastating attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel, and took some 240 hostage.

Elon made the comment Wednesday when a user posted a video that is part of a campaign against antisemitism, depicting a father reprimanding his son for making antisemitic remarks on the internet.

Another user responded, “Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.

“I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”

Musk responded that it was “the actual truth.”

In follow-up posts, Musk wrote that he doesn’t believe that “all Jewish communities” hate white people but said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.”

“I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind,” he wrote. “I’m sick of it. Stop now.”

Musk and the ADL have been at odds for about a year. Soon after Musk’s takeover of the platform in 2022, the ADL encouraged companies to pause their ad spending on the site in protest of Musk removing guardrails against hate speech, though the ADL resumed its own paid ads on the platform.

IBM, EU and Lionsgate said they would pause ads on X on Friday amid a surge of hate speech. In IBM’s case, the multinational said it stopped advertising on X after a report said its ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said Friday in response to Musk’s tweet.

On Friday, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said on X after Musk’s post to suspend users who call for genocide: “This is an important and welcome move by [Musk]. I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.”