Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap! Here’s your wrap-up of the latest articles from our contributors, including our colleagues at Local Call.

Since October, the Israeli military has vastly scaled up its acquisitions of cloud and AI services from Microsoft and its partner OpenAI, revealed in a new investigation by Yuval Abraham in collaboration with Local Call and The Guardian. According to one intelligence source, Microsoft personnel work closely with different army units to develop products, becoming so embedded that he referred to them as “people who are already working with the unit,” as if they were soldiers.

With the world’s attention fixated on the release of three Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity last Sunday evening, much less was made of the release of 90 Palestinians from Israeli prison, most of whom had been held for months without charges. Oren Ziv reported from the West Bank, where thousands gathered to celebrate and welcome home the prisoners, who recounted the brutal conditions inside Israeli prisons — while settlers rampaged through nearby villages.

Haitham S., a Palestinian Journalist from the Palestinian village of Umm Al Khair in the South Hebron Hills, wrote about the acute unemployment crisis in his village. After October 7, Israel revoked the work permits of more than 150,000 Palestinians working inside Israel. On top of an uptick in settler violence, home demolitions, and Israel’s attacks on UNRWA, most village residents find themselves in financial ruin. 

As soon as the ceasefire came into effect last Sunday, January 19th 2025, Palestinians displaced from the northern district to Gaza City have been returning to their homes–only to find them unrecognizable due to bombing, burning or demolition by Israeli forces. Ahmed Ahmed spoke with residents of the northern Strip who are sifting through the rubble to locate personal belongings or the remains of loved ones killed in Israeli attacks. 

For Mahmoud Mushtaha, the current ceasefire is only a temporary halt to the brutal attacks by Israeli occupation forces that have decimated Gaza. Hope for a better future requires substantive action and accountability, including an end to Israel’s blockade and unity of Palestinian leadership. 

And Orly Noy argued that the war will not end with a ceasefire, which an overwhelming majority of Israelis now support. Neither the return of the hostages or even a full military withdrawal from Gaza will reverse decades of occupation, oppression, and apartheid. The war can end only when Israeli society realizes that it is not only immoral but also impossible to secure our existence with the oppression and subjugation of another people: where there is oppression, there will always be resistance.

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