Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gives a televised address on September 19, 2024, in this screenshot taken from a video. Al-Manar TV/Reuters
Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut strike, group confirms
CNN
“The leader of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his underground headquarters in Beirut on Friday, Israel and Hezbollah confirmed. Nasrallah, who had led the powerful group for more than 30 years and was a hugely influential figure in the region, died when Israeli fighter jets struck in an area of the capital’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh.”
Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, the latest in a series of escalating attacks in a years long conflict between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies.
Iran fires at least 180 missiles into Israel as regionwide conflict grows
AP News
“Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday, the latest in a series of rapidly escalating attacks between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies that threatens to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war. Iran said the barrage was retaliation for a series of devastating blows Israel has landed in recent weeks against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Earlier Tuesday, Israel launched what it said is a limited ground incursion in southern Lebanon.”
A man takes pictures of damaged buildings and debris in the aftermath of an Israeli strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Oct. 3, 2024. MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS
Dozens killed in new Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza as some nations ramp up Lebanon evacuation plans
CBS
“At least seven health and rescue workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Beirut overnight, an Islamic health organization said Thursday, as Israel's battle against the Iran-backed groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza raged, fueling concern of a wider regional conflict. The strike in Beirut's residential Bashoura district hit a multi-story apartment building that houses an office of the Health Society, a group of civilian first responders affiliated with Hezbollah. It was the second airstrike to hit central Beirut this week, and the second to hit the Health Society in 24 hours. The Associated Press said no Israeli warning was issued to the area before the strike. Residents reported a sulfur-like smell, and Lebanon's state-run National News Agency accused Israel of using phosphorous bombs in the strike, which are prohibited by international law for use near civilian populations.”
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes that struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on 2 October. Photograph: Daniel Carde/Getty
Eight Israeli soldiers killed in clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon
The Guardian
"Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed and a number of others wounded in three exchanges with Hezbollah in heavy fighting inside Lebanon. The largest group of soldiers, from the commando brigade and including an officer, was involved in a clash with Hezbollah in a village north of the Israeli border community of Misgav Am, while two other soldiers from the Golani brigade were killed in a separate incident."
A day after pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and Syria, a second round of bombs — this time embedded in walkie-talkies and solar equipment — detonated on Wednesday in Beirut and throughout Lebanon.
The combined death toll from the attacks rose to at least 37 people, including a9-year-old girland an 11-year-old boy, with more than 3,000 wounded. Doctors at a Beirut hospital reported that many among the injured had lost eyes and had to have limbs amputated. Exploding walkie-talkies caused more than 70 fires to erupt in homes and stores across Lebanon, along with more than a dozen cars and motorcycles.
While the Israeli government has yet to claim responsibility for the attack, multipleU.S. officialshave saidIsrael was behind the device explosions.
The seemingly indiscriminate nature of the attacks has drawn the attention and concern of experts in international law who caution that the explosions may rise to the level of war crimes.
“If it is Israel behind this, they’ve got some tough questions to answer, including to the U.S. government, because the U.S. government is providing great military support,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. “It really should be in the U.S. government’s interest to ensure that its military partners are complying with the laws of war.”
Finucane said that, were he still advising the State Department, he would urge the U.S. to ask a series of questions: Did Israel take precautions to minimize harms to civilians? Did it anticipate blasts to be large enough to harm civilians? How and when were the devices altered to be detonated?
On the specific topic of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, he highlighted a law of war that prohibits the “use of booby-traps or other devices in the form of harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.” Both Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the prohibition,Article 7(2) of Amended Protocol II, which was added to international laws of war in 1996
Finucane noted that the Department of Defense’sLaw of War Manual, when referencing the 1996 law, uses the example of communications headsets, which Italian forces during World War II booby-trapped with explosives and electronic detonators after retreat or surrender in order to kill their enemies. Finucane wondered whether modification of pagers or walkie-talkies with explosive material would meet the law’s criteria.
“Israel may have a right to defend itself, but there are legal restrictions on how it does,” said Finucane, who is now a senior advisor with the International Crisis Group. “And from a policy perspective, it should be in the interest of the U.S. not to get dragged into further unnecessary wars in the Middle East, and certainly not be fueling those unnecessary wars.”
Hezbollah, a powerfulLebanese Shia group backed by Iran, has been exchanging rocket fire with Israel since October 7, leading to the displacement of tens of thousands in southern Lebanon and Northern Israel. Some estimates hold that more than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than 130 civilians, over the course of the past year. In Israel, including the annexed Golan Heights, the violence has killed at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians
Over the past several months, tensions between the nations continued to rise. Many argue that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu iswidening the warinthe region, beyond Gaza and theWest Bank, to strengthen his grip on power in Israel. A regional war could involve Iran,Iraq, Syria,Turkey,Yemen, as wellas the U.S.The pager and walkie-talkie attacks seem to be evidence of further escalation.
Netanyahu on Wednesday doubled down on his pledge to “return the residents of the north safely to their homes,” without mentioning the recent attacks.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was more direct and said the country is “at the start of a new phase in the war” and that “the center of gravity is shifting to the north” toward Lebanon.
Both Netanyahu and Gallant already facepotential arrest warrantsfrom the International Criminal Court on allegations of war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza, including the targeting andstarvationof civilians.
“I think detonating pagers in people’s pockets without any knowledge of where those are, in that moment, is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “I think this seems to be quite blatant, both violations of bothproportionalityandindiscriminateattacks
Israel has assassinated its enemies across borders in the past. In August, a bombing in a Tehran, Iran, apartment killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Israel’s airstrikes into Lebanon have also killed Hezbollah militant leaders. In 1996, Israelbooby-trappedand detonated a cellphone used by Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash, killing him instantly inside his Gaza home.
Both Peake and Finucane said the scale of this week’s attacks are unprecedented.
The Israeli military has used algorithms andartificial intelligence systemsto direct its airstrikes at the homes of potential Hamas militants on a large scale during its war on Gaza. Those strikes have killed and injuredthousands of civilianswho were in the vicinity of alleged Hamas militants, and the program hasbeen criticized by IDF officersworking in these AI operations for ignoring the laws of war.
But the nature of the explosive electronics attack makes any assessment of targeting or intent even more difficult.
“You certainly see a mass targeting scheme of individuals here,” Finucane said, referring to the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. “Israel, or whoever was launching this attack, didn’t know where these people were going to be located at any given time, so it makes it really tough to assess proportionality or other precautions.”
Finucane urged the U.S. to use its leverage to achieve a ceasefire resolution in its war in Gaza, which he said is the root cause of its conflict in Lebanon and across the region. He said the U.S. should stop its military aid to Israel, which would halt Israel’s military campaigns, pushing it toward resolution.
“I’d say enough is enough,” Finucane said. “Does this administration want to hand off a war between Israel and Hezbollah, involving the U.S, to its successor?” he continued. “Does this administration want to keep fighting the Houthis with no end in sight? Does this administration want to keep fueling the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza? If not, there’s an obvious solution: getting a ceasefire in Gaza and calming things down in the region.”
Despite theclaims of Vice President Kamala Harristhat there are no U.S. troops in active combat zones today, many remain deployed abroad in dangerous and unsustainable positions across the world. This includes both Iraq and Syria.
The United States and Iraq, however, have apparentlyreached a deal to begin the removal of 2,500 U.S. forcesstill stationed in that country. Staged over the course of 2025 and to conclude in 2026, the plan would, if successful, put an end to the U.S. military presence in a nation where many of the internal problems have a direct relationship to the invasion of 2003.
Next door to Iraq is Syria, a country whose own brutal and long-running civil war has also seen over a decade of U.S. intervention, from the ill-conceivedOperation Timber Sycamore, the largest known C.I.A. arm and equip program in history, to direct U.S. occupation via bases of significant parts of the east of the country. Meanwhile, along coordinatedregime change campaign targeting President Bashir al-Assad failed after exacerbating the situation on the ground.
But while the U.S. played a supporting role, it was actually a complex patchwork of local forces and Iranian-backed militias that did the majority of the anti-ISIS fighting in the last decade. The U.S. strongly supported the Kurds while opposing to the Syrian government which was also fighting ISIS at the time. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.S.worked with Iranian-supported militias against ISISonly to then fear their influence
It is, so the U.S. government says, to prevent the resurgence of this terror network that U.S. bases have remained in Syria and Iraq. There are reportedly 900 U.S. troops still in Syria today. They are also serving as a counter to the very Iranian influence which keeps ISIS at bay. A hornet’s nest of regional actors swarm about these remote bases, and so the purpose and sustainability of the deployments grow ever more questionable.
The problem with being a counter in a slice of territory surrounded by governments friendly to Iran is that these small forces are effectively tripwires.They are attacked frequently, resulting inAmerican casualties continuing through this summer, but do not exist in numbers great enough to meaningfully change the balance of power with local actors.
There is no excuse for risking the lives of American servicemen in what is increasingly a series of failed interventions passed from one generation to another. If Iran is to be contained it will be by other more local countries containing it, not a smattering of vulnerable and isolated American bases. These bases, frankly, could only be made relevant with a massive infusion of reinforcements that the American public is unlikely to ever support,considering the rapidly souring mood towards interventions abroad.
Furthermore, with the welcome news of U.S. forces pulling out of Iraq, the only land access to the bases in Syria will be via Jordan. This could leave their supply lines even more under threat than they are now. It thus makes perfect sense that if Iraq is to be evacuated by U.S. forces, Syria should be as well.
Knowing all of this, it is time to bring the U.S. intervention in Syria to a close in tandem with the intervention in Iraq
Washington, D.C. | www.adc.org | September 15, 2024 – Today marks the 42nd anniversary of one of the most brutal acts of violence in modern history: the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Beginning on September 16, 1982, Lebanese militia, operating under the direction of Israeli forces, massacred, wounded, and left homeless thousands of defenseless men, women, and children in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. The indiscriminate killing was carried out methodically over the course of two days until the morning of September 18. By the end of this campaign of violence and terror, over 3,000 Palestinian refugees had been murdered.
During the massacre, Israeli forces controlled the area surrounding the Sabra and Shatila camps. They allowed militants to enter the camps, blocked Palestinian refugees from escaping, and illuminated the night sky with flares as the killing raged on. The day after the killings stopped, the United Nations Security Council condemned the “criminal massacre of Palestinian civilians.” Three months later, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously condemned the killings as an act of genocide. A UN-established commission concluded that Israeli authorities were responsible for the massacre, with the intention to destroy the national and cultural identity of the Palestinian people.
Even the Israeli-established Kahan Commission could not fully exonerate Israeli forces, finding then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon “personally responsible” for not preventing the bloodshed. Though Sharon was briefly removed from his post, he later rose to become Israel’s Prime Minister, a chilling reminder of how deeply embedded impunity has been in Israel’s nearly century-long campaign of violence against Palestinians.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza today, with relentless bombardments, blockade, and mass casualties, echoes the horrific violence witnessed at Sabra and Shatila. Over the decades, the pattern of targeted massacres, displacement, and dehumanization of the Palestinian people has continued, rooted in the same colonialist ambitions that have driven Israel’s policies since its founding. The Gaza Strip, like the refugee camps of Lebanon, is a testament to the catastrophic consequences of dispossession and the ongoing efforts to eradicate Palestinian existence.
Israel’s impunity continues as the international community has long failed to deliver justice for the victims of Sabra and Shatila, and that failure persists today as Palestinians in Gaza face yet another chapter of genocidal violence. The families of those massacred, both then and now, demand not only remembrance but urgent action. Ending Israel’s apartheid system and occupation, holding its leaders accountable for their crimes, and implementing the right of return for Palestinian people are essential steps toward justice.
Milwaukee, WI – On Monday, September 2, the Milwaukee Area Labor Council (MALC) and other unions such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) hosted LaborFest, an annual celebration held in commemoration of Labor Day. Hundreds of workers and union supporters turned out for the occasion.
The first portion of the day’s events saw the traditional mass march featuring rank-and-file workers mobilized by unions spanning the spectrum of organized labor, from trades workers to letter carriers to communications workers and everything in between.
A group of trade unionists also marched representing the network Wisconsin Labor for Palestine (WLFP), a statewide association of progressive pro-Palestine union members. The march typically ends at the SummerFest grounds where workers are able to eat and drink and enjoy various forms of entertainment. However, this year, as with the last few years, there was a special guest.
This time, it was Democratic vice presidential candidate and current governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. Given the current situation in Palestine and the Biden administration’s complicity with genocide, which Harris and Walz endorse, Walz’s presence at the event spurred some into action.
“I think a lot of people in my [school] district don’t quite know what Walz stands for. He works for Israel. I’m a K4 teacher and every time I look at my students it’s children like them who are being murdered every day,” said Stephanie Spalatin, a member of MTEA and also the Milwaukee Antiwar Committee. “I serve Black and brown communities of Milwaukee. I see the parallels of Palestinian and Black liberation struggles and the connections. We need to educate and demonstrate.”
As the LaborFest march entered the final stretch, it was met with a supportive group of protesters, holding pro-labor and pro-Palestine signs and Palestinian flags. Some contingents within the march joined in chanting with the protesters, including slogans such as “Union yes and genocide no” and “Free, free Palestine.” There was a large union solidarity group that marched with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) who were particularly vocal in their support for Palestinian liberation. The protest joined the end of the march as it funneled into the entrance to the SummerFest grounds, but they were met with a police presence that forced them to the other side of the road. The protest continued for some time with speeches and more chanting.
Inside LaborFest, some trade union, anti-war, and student activists snuck in large banners with messages around ending funding for war crimes and to stop arming Israel. Despite not knowing about the banners, event staff, guided primarily by the Democratic Party and the Secret Service, were quick to target and surveil these activists as many were also wearing keffiyehs. The threats of removal for any disruption did not deter the activists from their plans.
As soon as Walz took the podium on the stage, two groups of unionists and other activists stood on their bleachers and unfurled their banners to stand silently and project their pro-Palestine and anti-genocide messages. In a matter of seconds, the staffers stormed them from all sides, aggressively grabbing at both the banners and the people holding them. As they were being escorted out, the 20 activists received some encouraging words from others in the crowd. The activists chanted “Free, free Palestine!” while Walz made sure to thank the Secret Service.
Ryan Hamann, a shop steward with the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 2 and one of the activists who was thrown out of the event said, “The Democrats talk of their commitment to labor in the U.S., but in the same breath they offer continued unwavering support for the genocide in Palestine, an act which, on top of massacring women and children, is killing Palestinian trade unionists.” He continued, “The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza raised the call for trade unionists everywhere, but especially here in the U.S., to work to end the genocidal Israeli campaign. It is our duty to fulfill this obligation to our working-class siblings in Palestine. We will continue the struggle until Palestine is free.”
ASK: Members of Congress should introduce or cosponsor one or more JRDs to halt these weapons sales.
ISSUE:On August 13, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress of five possible Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Israel totaling more than $20 billion, a record-breaking series of potential sales which would further deepen US complicity in Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In addition,Zeteoreported on August 9 that the State Department notified Congress of a Direct Commercial Sale (DCS) to Israel of 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) valued at $262 million.
These weapons sales are likely to be paid for through annual and supplemental Foreign Military Financing (FMF) appropriated to Israel by Congress, making US taxpayers directly complicit in Israeli atrocities committed against Palestinians with these weapons.
Congress has fifteen calendar days to block these potential sales through the passage of one or more Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs). According to theCongressional Research Service, this clock starts once the notifications are published in theCongressional Record, a step which is likely to occur shortly after Congress reconvenes from its August recess on September 9.
ASK:Members of Congress should introduce or cosponsor one or more JRDs to halt these weapons sales.
TOPLINES:Congress must act to stop these weapons sales from proceeding because:
Israel’s current genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza makes it ineligible for ANY weapons sales, according to US law and Biden administration policies.TheArms Export Control Act(AECA), the law under which Congress can introduce a JRD, limits the use of US weapons “solely for internal security, for legitimate self-defense,” and for a few other scenarios not applicable to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. No sales or deliveries of any weapons are permitted to a country in “substantial violation” of these limitations.
In addition, under the Biden administration’sConventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy, weapons are not supposed to be delivered to a country when it is “more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such; or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children.”
Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 16,500 children, since October, and has repeatedly and systematically committed every single atrocity enumerated in the CAT policy by deliberately targeting civilians, homes, schools and universities, hospitals, mosques and churches, and places of refuge in so-called “safe zones”. In addition, Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, alongside its denial of water, electricity, and medical supplies, constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law (IHL).
The American people want an arms embargo on Israel and do not want to be complicit in Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza. A March 2024 public opinion poll conducted by theCenter for Economic and Policy Researchfound that 52% of Americans believe that the US should halt all weapons shipments to Israel until it stops attacking Palestinians in Gaza. Only 27% of Americans support continuing weapons shipments. Among those who voted for President Biden in 2020, 62% support halting weapons to Israel while only 14% oppose.
Not only do the majority of Americans support halting weapons shipments to Israel.IMEU Policy Projectalso found that committing to imposing an arms embargo on Israel is a winning electoral strategy for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Our public opinion poll of Democratic and independent voters in three key swing states conducted by YouGov found that 39% of Georgia voters would be more likely to vote for Harris if she commits to an arms embargo whereas only 5% of voters would be less likely to vote for her. Similar results obtained in Arizona (35% to 5%) and in Pennsylvania (34% to 7%).
Israel must be held to the same standard as any other country receiving US weapons, not given an exemption from globally applicable US laws and policies which are supposed to prevent US weapons from being used to commit atrocities.
JRDs are common oversight tools to promote human rights, and they have been used in recent years to raise concerns about arms sales to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Previously, Members of Congress have also introduced JRDs for weapon sales to Israel. In 2021,Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, and Rashida Tlaib introduceda JRD to block JDAMs and Small Diameter Bombs Increment I to Israel. Sen. Bernie Sandersintroduced a version of this JRDin the Senate. And last November, Rep. Ilhan Omarintroduced a JRDwith five cosponsors to block the sale of $320 million of Spice Family Guided Bomb Assemblies to Israel.
The limitations on the usage of US weapons as defined by the AECA and the CAT policy are applicable globally. Israel must not be singled out for special treatment and exempted from human rights standards that apply to all countries under US law and Biden administration policy.
The Biden administration recently approved five major arms sales to Israel for F-15 fighter aircraft, tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, air-to-air missiles, mortar rounds, and related equipment for each. Though technically sales, most if not all of this matériel is paid for by U.S. taxpayers — Israel uses much of the military aid Congress approves for it effectively as a gift card to buy U.S.-made weapons.
The total value of the five weapons sales exceeds $20.3 billion.
More extraordinary than the price tag of these arms deals is that the White House made them public. Prior to last week’s announcements, it had disclosed just two arms sales to Israel. By March, the Biden administration had already greenlitmore than 100separate weapons deals for Israel, or aboutone every 36 hours, on average. The administration presumably kept the value of each arms deal “under threshold” to avoid having to notify Congress.
From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. had approved thousands of below-threshold arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth a total of$11.2 billion. Exploiting this loophole helped the Trump administration avoid scrutiny of its enabling of adevastatingandindiscriminatebombing campaign in Yemen. The Biden administration appears to be following the same playbook for the destruction it is enabling in Gaza.
The White House isn’t shy about publicizing arms transfers to other countries. For example, it has been very transparent about themilitary aidit sent Ukraine since February 2022. Biden promotesarmingUkraine as industrial policy,marketingthe military aid as a boon for domestic manufacturing and jobs. The Pentagon not onlyitemizeswhat specific matériel the U.S. sends to Ukraine, but alsoshowson a map where in the U.S. those weapons and equipment are made.
By contrast, nearly all the publicly available information on U.S.arms transfers to Israelcomes from leaks reported by the media. The Biden administration says very little about the weapons it delivers to Israel or how the Israeli military uses them. The following analysis is intended to shed light on both. In doing so, it helps explain why the Biden administration prefers to arm Israel in secret.
What follows is a non-exhaustive list of attacks by the Israeli military since October 7 that likely violated international law, grouped by the type of U.S.-supplied weapon involved in the attack.
In order for an attack to be listed below, there must be sufficient evidence that it violated international law. In all of the following cases, it’s at least more likely than not that the attack was a violation. Many of them almost certainly were in breach of international law. This is averyhigh threshold — as former State Department lawyer Brian Finucanewrotein Foreign Affairs, “The law of war permits vast death and destruction. This is true even under restrictive interpretations of the law.”
Furthermore, in order for an attack to be listed, there must be concrete forensic evidence that a U.S.-supplied weapon was likely used to commit the probable violation of international law. Only the types of weapons the U.S. has reportedly delivered to Israel since October 7 are considered. This report draws from forensic investigations that have been conducted by reputable international organizations, civil society groups, media outlets, and independent analysts.
The following 20 incidents represent a small fraction of potential war crimes committed with U.S.-provided weapons. First, information gathering and fact finding is extremely difficult. Israel restrictsU.N. andNGOaccess to Gaza and doesn’t cooperate with investigations into misuse of U.S.-supplied arms. Members of thepressare routinely denied access or attacked: Since October 2023, 116 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes or sniper fire in Gaza, representing86 percentof all those killed worldwide, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Prolongedcommunication blackoutsare commonplace in Gaza.
Second, Israel’s military campaignrelieson U.S. weapons, and so U.S. matériel is involved in nearly every facet of Israel’s campaign. For example, IsraelusesU.S.-made aircraft like the F-35, F-16, and F-15 to drop U.S.-made bombs, including the MK-84 (2,000 pounds), MK-83 (1,000 pounds), MK-82 (500 pounds), and 250-pound “small diameter” bombs, which can befittedwith U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits.
Thevast majorityof bombs Israel drops on Gaza are U.S.-made. The U.S. even provides Israel withjet fuel. The U.S. has sent so many arms to Israel since October 7 that the Pentagon hasstruggledto find sufficient cargo aircraft to deliver the matériel.
Third, Israel’s campaign ishistorically destructive. In the three weeks after October 7, Israel dropped an average of6,000 bombson Gaza per week. By comparison, U.S. and coalition forces dropped on average488 bombsper week on ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) between August 2014 and March 2019. OIR caused immense civilian harm — particularly in densely-populated areas like Mosul and Raqqa — but the scale of death and destructiondoesn’t come closeto what Israel has done in Gaza.
A former high-ranking officer in the Israeli militarytoldHaaretz that Israeli forces could have made as much progress as they have so far in Gaza with one-tenth of the destruction. This “unusually wasteful” and “reckless” conduct “reflects an absolute assumption that the U.S. will continue to arm and finance it,” he is quoted as saying.
What’s more, according to reporting, Israel has used an Artificial Intelligence program called “Lavender” to generate an unprecedented number of bombing targets with minimal human oversight. The AI program is coded with instructions that appearinconsistentwith international law and is deployed with little to no human oversight.
The Biden administrationacknowledgesthat Israel likely broke human rights law with U.S.-supplied weapons, butclaimsit doesn’t have enough evidence to link U.S.-supplied weapons to specific violations that would warrant cutting off military aid to Israel. As national security adviser Jake SullivantoldCBS, “We do not have enough information to reach definitive conclusions about particular incidents or to make legal determinations, but we do have enough information to have concern…Our hearts break about the loss of innocent Palestinian life.”
None of that is believable. As this report demonstrates, there is more than enough available information. If the Biden administration is truly concerned about the loss of innocent Palestinian life in Gaza, it can stop Israel’s atrocities by denying it the tools it needs to commit them.
MK-84 and other 2,000-pound bombs
Amount delivered since October 7: At least 14,100(as of June 28). The U.S.sentIsrael at least 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs from early October to late June. Another shipment 1,800 MK-84s is pending: The White Houseapprovedtheir transfer in March, but thenpausedshipping them in May. The U.S. alsodelivered100 2,000-poundBLU-109bunker-buster bombs between October 7 and December 1.
By mid-December, the Biden administration had alreadyprovidedIsrael with more than 5,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs,four times heavierthan the largest bombs the U.S. dropped in Syria and Iraq in its war against ISIS. In the first month of its military offensive in Gaza, Israeli forces droppedmore than 5002,000-pound bombs, more than40 percentof which were dropped in Israeli-designated safe zones. Six weeks into the war, Israel haddropped2,000-pound bombs in areas to which it had instructed civilians to fleemore than 200 times.
October 9, 2023: Israeli airstrikes hit a busy market in Jabalia refugee camp, killing at least 69 people. The market was more crowded than usual because people were in the process of fleeing their homes at the instruction of the Israeli military. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) analysisreportedthat “one or two GBU-31 air dropped munitions were used” and found no military objective to justify the strike. The GBU-31 ismadefrom a U.S.-made 2,000-pound MK 84 or BLU-109 bomb and a JDAM guidance kit. Neither U.N. OHCHR nor Amnesty International found evidence of a military target at the time of the attack. Even if there was a legitimate military target, the scale of destructionindicatesthe Israeli military’s attack was disproportionate. Disproportionate attacks arewar crimes— international lawprohibitsattacks that are expected to cause excessive civilian harm compared to the direct and provable military advantage anticipated from the attack.
October 17, 2023: After the Israeli militarytoldGazans to flee to Khan Yunis for their safety, it bombed the al-Lamdani family house in Khan Yunis. Between 15 and 40 people were killed in the attack. Remnants of a U.S.-madeMK-842,000-pound bomb were found at the site
October 25, 2023: Israeli airstrikes flattened at least 5,700 square meters in the Al Yarmouk neighborhood of Gaza City, killing at least 91 people, including 39 children. A U.N.assessmentdetermined that “several” 2,000-pound GBU-31s air-dropped munitions were likely dropped by Israeli forces in the attack. According to areportfrom U.N. OHCHR, “The use of a GBU-31 or a GBU-32, in such densely populated areas in the middle of residential neighborhoods when extensive civilian harm would be foreseeable, raises very serious concerns that those attacks were disproportionate and/or indiscriminate, and that no or insufficient precautions were taken.”
October 31, 2023: After Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia, Gaza’slargestrefugee camp, a nearby hospital said it received 400 casualties, including 120 dead, most of whom were women and children. Ananalysisof the site showed at least five craters, the largest one likely from a GBU-31. The GBU-31 ismadefrom a JDAM and either a 2,000-pound BLU-109 or MK-84 bomb. According toreports, Israeli forces gave no warning before the attack, and no effort was made to evacuate the residential buildings. U.N. OHCHRsaidthe attack on Jabalia refugee camp could amount to a war crime.
January 13, 2024: Israeli forces dropped a U.S.-made MK-84 2,000-pound bomb from a U.S.-made F-16 aircraft on a house in Deir al-Balah but it didn’t explode. A second airstrike did destroy the home, leaving an approximately 40-foot size crater,characteristicof a 2,000-pound bomb with a delayed fuse. The Israeli military had designated Deir al-Balah as a safe zone in October. Israeli forcesinstructedPalestinians in northern Gaza to flee there on December 11 andtoldPalestinians in central Gaza the same thing on December 22. By mid-January, Israeli bombing had leveled entire city blocks and dozens of family homes in Deir al-Balah.
GBU-39 and other ‘small diameter’ bombs
Amount delivered since October:At least 2,600(as of June). More than 2,000 of these “small-diameter” bombs are 250-pound GBU-39 munitions. After Israelreceivedan expedited shipment of 1,000 Boeing-made GBU-39s in early October, the Biden administrationapprovedthe transfer of more than 1,000 GBU-39 bombs for Israel on April 1, the same day that Israeli forcesbombeda World Central Kitchen convoy, killing seven aid workers. It’s likely thatfar moreGBU-39s have been delivered to Israel than the amount listed here.
Purportedly out of concern for Palestinian civilians, the Biden administration isurgingthe Israeli military to use more 250-pound GBU-39s and fewer less-precise 2,000-pound bombs. The result appears to have been a surge in possible war crimes committed with GBU-39s. The relative size of bombs doesn’t matter much if Israeli forces disregardfundamental rulesgoverning targeting in international law, including distinction, precautions, and proportionality. As retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant Wes Bryanttoldthe New York Times, “While they’re using smaller bombs, they’re still deliberately targeting where they know there are civilians.”
Boeingmarketsits GBU-39 as a “low collateral damage” precision weapon. Echoing Boeing, White House spokesperson John KirbysaidIsrael’s use of these 250-pound bombs is “certainly indicative of an effort to be discreet and targeted and precise.” The blast from a GBU-39 bomb can kill or injure peopleover 1,000 feet away, and shrapnel from the bomb’s steel casing can kill or injure anyonewithin 570 feet.
January 9, 2024: Israeli forces bombed a residential building in a neighborhood the Israeli military had repeatedly ordered displaced Gazans to flee to. The attack killed 18 people, including 10 children, and wounded at least eight others. Israeli forces gave no warning to evacuate. An investigation foundno evidencethat the building or anyone in it could be considered a legitimate military target. The Israeli government has yet to give a reason for the strike. Fragments from a U.S.-made Boeing GBU-39 were recovered from the rubble.
May 13, 2024: Israeli forces bombed a school housing displaced civilians in Nuseirat, killing up to 30 people. Atail finof a U.S.-made GBU-39 was recovered at the location of the strike
May 26, 2024: An Israeli airstrike on a displacement camp in Rafah filled with makeshift tentskilledat least 46 people — including 23 women, children and older adults — andinjuredmore than 240 others. The tail of a U.S.-madeGBU-39bomb was recovered at the site of the attack. The “81873” on the munition fragment is theidentifier codethe U.S. government assigned to Woodward, a Colorado-based manufacturer that supplies bomb parts, including the GBU-39. The State Departmentrefusedto acknowledge that this was a U.S.-made weapon. Israeli forcesclaimedmunitions stored at the camp caused most of the devastation, but there isno evidenceof a weapons cache present.
June 6, 2024: At least two GBU-39 munitions were used in an Israeli airstrike on the UN-run al-Sardi school in Nusreit, central Gaza. At least 40 people werekilledin the strike, including nine women and 14 children. About6,000 displaced Palestinianswere sheltering at the school when it was bombed. The Israeli militarydeniedthat there were any civilian casualties. Israeli human rights group B’Tselemsaidthe attack is a possible war crime. A U.S.-made navigation device manufactured by Honeywell was alsodocumentedat the site.
August 10, 2024: More than 100 Palestinians werekilledin an Israeli airstrike on al-Tabin school in Gaza City, which was being used to shelter displaced people. The Israeli military said it used “precise munitions.” Paramedics who arrived at the scenesaidthey found bodies “ripped to pieces” and that many bodies were unidentifiable. Parents reported difficulty identifying their deceased children. Remnants ofat least twoBoeing-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs wereidentifiedat the scene. Two investigations foundno evidencethat the school was being used for military operations, as the Israeli military claimed. The list of fighters the Israeli army alleged it killed in the strikeincludedseveral people who had previously been listed as deceased and civilians with no known military ties.
Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM)
Amount delivered since October 7:At least 3,000(as of December 1).
October 10, 2023: An Israeli airstrike on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah killed 24 civilians. The code stamped on a recovered munition fragment,70P862352, indicates that a U.S.-supplied JDAM was used in the attack. The Boeing-made guidance kit was likely fitted to a 2,000-pound bomb. SurvivorssaidIsrael gave civilians no warning of an imminent strike. Amnesty Internationalsaidthe attack must be investigated as a war crime.
October 22, 2023: An Israeli airstrike on the Abu Mu’eileq family home in Deir al-Balah killed 19 people, including 12 children. The home was located in the area to which the Israeli military had ordered residents of northern Gaza to flee on October 13. The code stamped on the recovered scrap,70P862352, is associated with JDAMs and Boeing. The Boeing-made JDAM kit was fitted to a bomb that weighed at least 1,000-pounds. SurvivorssaidIsrael gave no warning of an imminent strike. Amnesty Internationalsaidthe attack must be investigated as a war crime.
March 27, 2024: An Israeli strike on the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a humanitarian organization, killed seven emergency and relief volunteers in southern Lebanon. The strike used a U.S.-made JDAM guidance kit affixed to an Israeli-made 500-pound bomb. Human Rights Watchsaidthat the incident should be investigated as a war crime.
July 13, 2024: An Israeli strike on the Al-Mawasi — an Israeli military-designated “safe zone” —killed over 90 peopleand injured hundreds more. Remnants of a U.S.-made JDAM were found at the scene. Based on the size of the fin fragment, the JDAM was likely fitted to either a 1,000- or 2,000-pound bomb.
June 8, 2024: Israel’s operation to rescue four hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed nearly 300 Palestinians. A witnessreportedIsraeli attack helicopters launching many strikes in Nuseirat and surrounding areas. Another witnesssaid150 rockets fell in less than 10 minutes. Remnants ofat least twoU.S.-made Hellfire missiles werefoundin a damaged residential building. VideoshowsU.S.-made Apache helicopters firing severalHellfire missilesinto the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli military alsobombeda busy marketseveral blocks southof where the Israeli hostages were kept, and in the opposite direction of the evacuation route. U.N. OHCHRsaidthe raid “seriously calls into question whether the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution — as set out under the laws of war — were respected by the Israeli forces.”
June 23, 2024: An Israeli airstrike on a health clinic in Gaza City killed five people, including Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s director of ambulances and emergency. He was reportedly the500th medical worker killedduring Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The rocket motor of a U.S.-supplied Hellfire missile wasrecoveredat the health care center.
July 14, 2024: Hundreds of Palestinians were taking refuge at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Abu Oraiban school when it was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing at least 22 people. The Israeli military issued no warning to the displaced people sheltering there before the attack. U.S.-made Hellfire missilefragmentswere found at the school, including part of itsguidance systemandmotor. (Remnants of a Boeing-made GBU-39’s tail section were alsorecoveredat the site.)
120mm tank shells
Amount delivered since October 7: At least 13,981. A day after the U.S.vetoeda U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of hostages, the White House notified Congress on December 8 that it had approved thesaleof 13,981 120mm M830A1 high-explosive tank cartridges to Israel.
The Biden administration invoked an emergency authority to bypass the congressional review period. Because the shells were sourced from U.S. Army inventory, they could betransferredimmediatelyto Israel.
The day before,Reuters,Human Rights Watch, andAmnesty Internationalall published investigations providing evidence that an Israeli tank likely deliberately fired two Israeli-made 120mm shells at a group of journalists in southern Lebanon in October, killing one Reuters journalist and injuring six others. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the incident was an apparent war crime. Israeli tanks have also struckhospitalsandhumanitariansheltersusing 120mm tank rounds. On August 13, the Biden administration notified Congress that it approved a $774 million armssaleto Israel for 32,739 120mm tank cartridges.
January 29, 2024: Six-year-oldHind Rajabwas the only survivor in her family’s car after Israeli tanks opened fire. Over the phone, Hind begged rescue workers to come save her. The Palestine Red Crescent Society dispatched an ambulance with two emergency workers. At least one Israeli tank opened fire, killing both paramedics. Afragmentof a U.S.-made M830A1 120mm tank round was documented at the scene.
155mm artillery shells
Amount delivered: At least 57,000(as of December 1). This total includes thousands of 155mm rounds originally for Ukraine that the Biden administrationdivertedto Israel in October. Netanyahuspecifically requested155mm artillery shells from U.S. lawmakers in mid-November.
Around the same time, more than 30 organizationsurgedthe Biden administration tonot supplyIsrael with these munitions because their inaccuracy and 100-300 meter casualty radius make them “inherently indiscriminate” in the Gaza context. “It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which high explosive 155mm artillery shells could be used in Gaza in compliance with [international humanitarian law],” the organizations wrote.
On December 29, the White House notified Congress that it approved thesaleof an additional 57,021 155mm shells to Israel. The Biden administration invoked an emergency authority to bypass the congressional review period. Israeli forces will likely fire these rounds fromU.S.-madehowitzers. The Israeli military announced earlier that month it firedover 100,000 artillery roundsduring the first 40 days of its ground invasion of Gaza, adding that artillery plays a “central role” by providing “intense fire cover” for its ground forces.
October 16: Israeli forces fired 155mm artillery shells containing white phosphorus into Dhayra, southern Lebanon. At least nine civilians were killed and civilian property was damaged. Lot production codes found on the shellsindicatethey were made in the US. Amnesty Internationalsaidthe attack was indiscriminate and must be investigated as a war crime.
(Credit above: White phosphorus fired by Israeli army to create a smoke screen, is seen on the Israel-Lebanon border in northern Israel, November 12, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
Armored vehicles
Amount delivered since October 7: Unknown. The Israeli Ministry of Defense reported on October 19 that U.S. Air Force cargo airplanesdeliveredthe first tranche of U.S.-made David light armored vehicles, part of a$22 millionarms deal from April 2023.
November 14, 2023: The first photo below from the Israeli Ministry of Defense shows David light armor vehicles after beingunloadedfrom a U.S. Air Force C-17atBen Gurion Airport on October 19. The second photo shows Israeli forces using David light armor vehicles to obstruct an ambulance en route to a hospital on November 14,arrestingthewoundedperson inside. International humanitarianlawprohibitsattacks on and obstruction of medical transport.
Stephen Semler is co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, a think tank that develops policy ideas for the working class. He writes the Polygraph newsletter on Substack.
The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.
Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide
Western media companies have made themselves a part of the mechanism of genocide in Palestine, and there are historical precedents for holding them accountable.
The ruthlessness of the Israeli genocide machine in Palestine, and the direct complicity of the U.S., UK, and other Western governments are two key pillars in the horrors being perpetrated against the Palestinian people (and in the attacks on human rights defenders around the globe).
But there is an essential third pillar: the role of complicit Western media corporations knowingly disseminating Israeli disinformation and propaganda, justifying war crimes and crimes against humanity, dehumanizing Palestinians, and blacking out information on the genocide in the West. From the perspective of international human rights law, such actions could and should be subject to sanctions. And there are historical precedents.
Seventy-six years ago, when delegates gathered at the newly established United Nations to draft a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the importance of protecting freedom of expression was front and center. They would declare that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
But, in the wake of a half-century of horrific atrocities, driven in significant part by the dehumanization of millions on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, or other status, they were all too well aware that speech could also be used as a powerful weapon to destroy the rights of others, including the right to life itself. Thus, in the same document, the UN made clear that freedom of expression does not grant media corporations or anyone else a right “to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the other rights and freedoms.”
At the same time, in another UN conference room, delegates were gathered to create a new Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There too, the drafters were aware of the danger of speech that dehumanizes and incites. The final convention would criminalize not just genocide, but alsoincitementto genocide andcomplicityin genocide- prohibitions that apply not only to states but to private actors as well.
The drafters of both instruments were aware of the conviction in the Nuremburg Tribunal just two years earlier of publisher Julius Streicher for incitement and “persecution on political and racial grounds.” The court found that Streicher’s media publicationDer Sturmercontinued to publish articles that included “incitement to murder and extermination” even while he was aware of the horrors that were being perpetrated against European Jews by Nazi Germany.
Fifty years later, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) would convict three media personalities for their role in inciting the Rwanda genocide. Two worked for theMille Collinestelevision and radio company and one for theKanguranewspaper. All three were found guilty of incitement to genocide (among other crimes). During sentencing, ICTR Judge Navi Pillay (now a commissioner on the UN’s international commission of enquiry investigating Israel’s crimes) admonished the perpetrators: “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the…medium of communication with the widest public reach to disseminate hatred and violence…Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.”
Der Sturmerknew what they were doing.Mille Collinesknew what they were doing. And, today, CNN, Fox, BBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal know what they are doing. This is not to say that these Western outlets are in every sense the modern equivalentsDer SturmerandMilles Collines(they are not). But, like these historic examples, they have recklessly crossed the boundaries of ethical journalism and, in some cases, may find themselves legally exposed as well.
In the face of the first live-streamed genocide in history unfolding on the screens of people from Boston to Botswana, it is simply not credible to suggest that Western media companies are not aware of the realities on the ground and of what they are doing to obscure them. They have indisputably made conscious choices to hide the genocide from their audiences, to systematically dehumanize the Palestinian victims, and to insulate the Israeli perpetrators from accountability.
In the wake of the findings of the World Court that charges of genocide are plausible, its ordering of provisional measures, the request of the ICC Prosecutor for arrest warrants, and the issuance of successive damning reports on Israel’s conduct by independent international human rights mechanisms, rather than reporting fully on these developments, Western media companies have suppressed information on them and doubled down on running cover for Israel.
Equally importantly, the target audience of these media companies is not limited to uninvolved bystanders. It includes as well Western government officials and policymakers directly complicit in the genocide, through the provision of military, economic, intelligence, and diplomatic support to Israel, as well as the voting public that enables this support. And it includes a significant number of dual Israeli nationals who shuttle back and forth to participate in the killing. The nexus between media incitement and harmful actions is more direct than these media companies might like to admit.
Indeed, if your only source of information is mainstream Western media, you may have no idea that Israel is on trial for genocide in the World Court or that Israel’s leaders are the subject of arrest warrant requests for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. It is likely that you have never heard the numerous statements of genocidal intent by the Israeli President, Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, and military commanders.
You will likely still believe the stories of beheaded Israeli babies (long proven to be fabricated) and be unaware of the many Palestinian babies who actually have been beheaded. You will almost certainly not know of the systematic killing of Palestinian civilians, children, infants, women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and others. You will be unaware of the torture camps, the systematic rape of detainees, and the Israeli snipers targeting small children in Gaza. And you may not even know that Israel now holds the world records for the murder of journalists, of aid workers, of UN officials, and of healthcare workers.
Instead, transparently false Israeli disinformation and propaganda are regularly and uncritically published in Western media to justify war crimes, dehumanize Palestinians, and distract the public from the daily atrocities committed in Israel’s campaign of extermination. Stories covering the genocide are censored. The voices of Palestinians and human rights defenders are suppressed.
Reporters are instructed not to mention “occupied territory”, “Palestinians”, or “refugee camps.” Those Palestinian civilian victims who are not erased entirely are reduced to “collateral damage” or “human shields” at best, or “terrorists” at worst. In massacre after massacre, Palestinians in headlines are notkilledby Israel, they simply “die.”
In the rule book of Western corporate media, there is no genocide, only a war of self-defense. And history started on October 7. Absent is any coverage of the context of 76 years of ethnic cleansing, persecution, mass imprisonment, gross violations of human rights and apartheid.
In sum, western media companies have made themselves a part of the mechanism of genocide in Palestine. Absent real accountability, these influential actors will continue to abuse their power, thereby trampling on the human rights of any people who fall on the wrong side of the line between those supported by these companies, and those who they choose to denigrate and dehumanize.
Of course, defenders of Palestinian human rights in the West who oppose Israeli genocide and apartheid know better than anyone how important it is to preserve the right to free speech. No group in modern history has faced more official and corporate silencing or had its speech more criminalized by Western governments. Speech restrictions are never imposed on those with the most power, but always target those most despised by power. This is the time to buttress free speech protections, not to erode them.
But free speech guarantees do not protect incitement to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Those acts can and must be subject to criminal accountability. Both defamation and incitement can also bring accountability in civil courts. Action in international tribunals for Israel’s crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine has already begun, and more is certain to follow. It is not inconceivable that, just as in the cases of the Nuremburg and Rwanda tribunals, some media companies or individuals might face real legal accountability in the months and years to come.
Regardless of what happens in the halls of justice, it is certain that these media outlets will eventually be held accountable in the court of public opinion. For defenders of human rights and people everywhere who care about holding power to account, this process is urgent. And, in fact, it has already begun. The cresting wave of public criticism of the blatant bias demonstrated by Western media during this genocide has forced some companies to begin to adjust their reporting, however slightly. This proves that change can happen if agents of change are mobilized. There is strength in speaking out, in supporting independent media, and in the boycott. As a first step, all those who care should unsubscribe from these outlets, both print and broadcast, switch to independent media sources, and encourage other to do the same.
To again quote Judge Pillay in the Rwanda decision: “The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control such media are accountable for its consequences”. The task of ensuring that accountability falls, ultimately, on all of us.
Stop sending weapons to Israel
I know that it hurts to hear something that's opposite of what we've been brought up to believe, but here it goes...
The slaughter of Palestinians who have been living there continuously "forever" must stop, especially since we have been the only country in the world enabling and supporting it since 1948.
No, actually Israel "does NOT have the right to defend itself" because it has been created "out of thin air" by militarily stealing Palestinian land (and chunks of neighboring countries) when USA, Britain & Russia gave it to them in 1948 as the three victorious powers decided to "reorganize the world". Yes, Britain was technically occupying/controlling it then as it did various other parts of the world. Yes, that land includes the "settlements" that were attacked last fall which were specifically illegal because that area was NOT supposed to be "settled" (or more correctly OCCUPIED) by previous agreements that US participated in.
Jews claim that it's their land because they lived there 2,000 yrs ago before leaving for "greener pastures" (literally), rather than remaining there continuously as Palestinians did.
Blended in with everyone living there would have been an acceptable option, as anywhere else in the world, but when religious extremists demand exclusive control at expense of everyone else, military might does NOT make it right to create a religiously exclusive country unlike anywhere else in the world...
We ALL must be tolerant and accepting of others, just as we expect and deserve acceptance by them, if we all want to prosper instead of perish...
Not a very difficult concept, I hope...
Never mind better uses that we Americans could put that money into... It is way overdue that we actually do, and stand, for what we preach to the rest of the world..
A reported 15 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Abdel Fatah Hamoud and the al-Zahraa schools in Gaza City. With these latest massacres, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks on Thursday alone rose to at least 56.
We are reaching out to you as military veterans who have fought in multiple US wars, and who continue to uphold the US Constitution and international law, to organize for justice and equality in our home communities, and to advocate for a peaceful foreign policy.
We are appalled by the ongoing Israeli slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children and by the maiming of tens of thousands more. We are outraged by the systematic blocking of food, leading to malnutrition, starvation, disease and the deaths of many more, particularly babies and young children. These are unbearable and unacceptable crimes that will go down in the history books as a terrible genocide – a holocaust.
Vice President Harris, many veterans listened carefully to your remarks after your recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. You said:
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent…. It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination…So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.”
Veterans For Peace wholeheartedly concurs with these sentiments, Vice President Harris. We applaud you for expressing sympathy with the Palestinian people. We also refuse to become numb to their suffering, and we cannot be silent. Like so many of our fellow citizens, including Jewish Americans, we are deeply disturbed that our government continues to provide Israel with a steady supply of bombs, and to provide political cover for Israeli leaders charged with war crimes.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has documented actions by Israeli leaders up to the crime of genocide, and has ordered Israeli leaders to take all necessary measures to avoid repeating such crimes. Yet the Israeli government and military have doubled down on slaughter and starvation.
Recently the ICJ declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to be illegal and called on all the nations of the world to take action to end that illegal occupation.
As Veterans For Peace has stated in letters to theState DepartmentandPresident Biden, the Biden Administration is violating multiple US laws when it sends bombs to Israel to be dropped on innocent Palestinians: Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Control Export Act, the US War Crimes Act, the Leahy Law, and the Genocide Prevention Implementation Act.
Our many members in over 100 US cities were outraged by the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, and we were apoplectic upon hearing Netanyahu’s bellicose and divisive remarks. Vice President Harris, we took some solace from your decision not to preside or be present at this embarrassing spectacle. You were the first member of the Biden administration to call for a “ceasefire.” So we are cautiously optimistic that, if elected President, you will work to end the criminal siege of Gaza.
However, your presidency would not begin until January 20 – almost six months from now. We urge you to listen to your most avid supporters – women, people of color and young voters. Listen to Arab Americans. And listen to veterans who know the horrible reality of war.
Don’t wait until January. Do the right thing NOW, even as you are campaigning for president. Please urge President Biden to change course in Gaza, to support an immediate, permanent ceasefire, and to stop sending weapons to Israel as long as this massacre continues.
Veterans For Peace is also concerned about the hostages. We unite with the Israeli families who are demanding the release of their family members who are captive in Gaza, and we unite the Palestinian families who are calling for the release of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
As you must know, Vice President Harris, continued US support for Israel amid the Gaza genocide also risks further regional and global escalation, with potentially irreversible consequences, even the unthinkable horror of nuclear war. We urge you to demonstrate the kind of leadership for which so many people are waiting – for which we are hoping and praying. Please use all your influence to bring an end to the unfathomable suffering in Gaza.
Veterans For Peace believes that justice and humanity require an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the opening of Gaza’s borders for massive humanitarian and medical aid, and the end of US arms shipments to Israel.
Like you, Ms. Vice President, we are calling for Palestinian self-determination, which requires the dismantling of apartheid and occupation, guaranteed equal rights for all who live in Israel/Palestine, and recognition of the right of return of refugees who are living in exile. Without these elements, there will never be peace and security for anyone living in that land.
Vice President Harris, you said you would work to “earn and win” your party’s nomination for president, as well as the trust and support of the American people. We ask you to take our concerns very seriously. We believe that the majority of people in the United States and around the world share these concerns. We have seen enough of war, colonization, apartheid and forced starvation. It is time to usher in a New Era of Peace, International Cooperation and Human Rights for All People.
Let it begin with Gaza. Let it begin NOW.
Sincerely,
Susan M. Schnall President Veterans For Peace Board of Directors
Congressional leadership’s invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24 was an act of political violence.
Since October of last year, the war criminal Netanyahu has ordered the mass murder of at least 39,000 Palestinian people in Gaza, including more than 15,000 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. In addition, over 21,000 children are thought to be missing.
Rather than holding Netanyahu accountable, top U.S. lawmakers like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) have given him carte blanche to justify the genocide. It comes as no surprise that their invitation has ushered in a wave of condemnation.
Millions across the world have been out in the streets for months protesting the genocide, the largest mobilization for Palestinian rights in history. Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is pursuing a warrant to arrest Netanyahu for war crimes. Criticism over the visit is bipartisan, with 230 anonymous congressional House and Senate staffers signing on to a letter speaking out against it. And a small but growing number of lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), plan to skip the speech. While well-meaning, these politicians have a responsibility to do more than just boycott. They should push harder by demanding an end to the genocide and organizing some kind of protest from the floor, even in the face of Speaker Johnson’s threat to arrest anyone who disrupts Netanyahu.
Beyond boycotting or protesting Netanyahu’s speech, if members of Congress want to truly get serious about stopping the genocide and ending the racist Israeli state’s illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, they must withdraw their votes of financial, military and diplomatic support, and urge their colleagues to do the same. Anything less will be disastrously ineffective.
But the liberation of Palestine won’t come from the halls of the U.S. Congress, or the growing Israeli protests in Tel Aviv. Instead, Palestinian liberation will be won by Palestinians themselves, who are resisting illegal military occupation, defending their people and land, and fighting for self-determination.
The other piece that will lead to victory is the power of the people: the collective voices of organizers, activists, trade unionists, students, artists, workers and scholars in the U.S. and around the world, who are fervently rejecting not only Netanyahu’s visit, but also Israel’s bombing, murdering, stealing, jailing, unhousing and demolishing — over 75 years of war crimes all intended to rob Palestinians of freedom, justice and a life of dignity.
In Gaza specifically, the 17-year-old air, sea and land blockade imposed by the apartheid state has impacted the health and longevity of the people. With severe restrictions on freedom of movement, Palestinians in Gaza are cut off from visiting family living in the West Bank, Jerusalem and historic Palestine, and are routinelydeniedpermitsto receivelife-saving medical treatment. On October 10, 2023, as a form of collective punishment, Israel canceled the limited number of work permits it issued to Palestinians in Gaza. The emotional and physical health of Palestinians in Gaza is further deteriorating because of restrictions of goods entering the Strip. Already frail from the siege, the past nine and a half months of horror have been devastating to those who are surviving the genocide.
It is clear that Israel is intent on depopulating Gaza. And despite international outrage, the U.S. remains devoted to supporting the assault, which, of course, is very much in line with its own bloody history — one built on the mass genocide of Black and Indigenous people. This history is reflected in U.S. laws and ingrained in its culture, and is at the root of the country’s social, economic, racial and gender inequities. These inequities show themselves in the ongoing daily violence of the US: as police officers murder Black and Brown people and use excessive force against communities of color; the separation, caging and dehumanization of immigrants; the attacks on access to sexual and reproductive health care; and the unprecedented spike in anti-LGBTQ legislation.
To disrupt the status quo and expose the injustices both in the U.S. and apartheid Israel, people are organizing en masse. In my hometown of Chicago, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), of which I am a member, has been out in the streets with the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine every weekend since the genocide began. We demand that the U.S. force Israel to stop the genocide by ending weapons transfers and all aid to the Zionist state. Israel cannot continue its crimes, occupation and colonization without U.S. funds and weapons, and we will continue to demand an end to our country’s role in supporting this genocide that Netanyahu and his far right government is perpetrating.
How can our congress people be convinced that the murder of Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian child who was trapped in a car alongside the bodies of six dead family members, is justified?
It is no exaggeration to say at this point that the U.S. has blood on its hands. AnAmnesty International reportverifies multiple incidents of U.S.-supplied weapons being used in Gaza in violation of humanitarian law. The report mentions deadly strikes conducted in December 2023 and January 2024, which killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children, in Rafah, which at the time was a designated “safe zone.”
On July 24, USPCN will be joining the Palestinian Youth Movement, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and a dozen other convening organizations, along with thousands of protesters to gather in front of the U.S. Capitol and demand a “citizen’s arrest” of Netanyahu for committing crimes against humanity. The prime minister’s visit to Washington comes as his government is in disarray. War cabinet member Benny Gantz, who has sinceresigned from his position, has publicly accused Netanyahu of “prioritizing his own political survival over the fate of the hostages in captivity.” Members of Netanyahu’s own political party are speaking out much more forcefully about Israel’s military facing defeat in Gaza.
Netanyahu knows that the game is over for him, and we can predict that his remarks will be filled with political grandstanding and deceptive and dangerous lies intended to justify the horror of the past nine and a half months. How can our congress people be convinced that the murder ofHind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian child who was trapped in a car alongside the bodies of six dead family members, is justified? Surrounded by Israeli military vehicles, Hind pleaded on the phone with an emergency medical worker to rescue her. Twelve days later, she wasfound dead, as were the paramedics sent to rescue her.
There is also no justification for the murder of3-year-old Reemand her 5-year-old brother Tariq, who were killed while sleeping. Their lifeless bodies were pulled from under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike brought their home down. These tragedies are unfortunately far from unique. Indeed, no human being can erase the disturbing images of Palestinian corpses in the streets, shattered infrastructure, buildings toppled with entire families inside, and evident signs of starvation.
Netanyahu last spoke in front of Congress in 2015. Since then, there has been a significant shift in the way people globally talk and think about the occupation of Palestine. Israel and its U.S. patron have been exposed internationally like never before, and much of the world now openly describes Israel as an apartheid, racist state.
Further prioritizing Israel’s control and complete domination and colonization over Palestinian lands, Israeli lawmakers voted against a two-state solution on July 18, proving yet again Israel’s apartheid status and its ultimate goal of politically erasing Palestinians from the map.
Netanyahu last spoke in front of Congress in 2015. Since then, there has been a significant shift in the way people globally talk and think about the occupation of Palestine.
When talking about the future of Palestine, it is now more commonplace to hear people advocating for a one-state solution and the end of settler colonialism.
Clearly, support for Israel has waned and the apartheid state is increasingly aware of its own fragility. And while Israel and its allies in the U.S. government don’t want our grievances to be heard, we will turn the temperature up at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which is scheduled to take place on the week of August 19 in Chicago. The genocide in Gaza will be a focal point for theCoalition to March on the DNC, of which USPCN is a leading member, and for tens of thousands of people that we expect to be there to protest Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Antony Blinken, and the rest of the Democrats who are complicit in the genocide.
Although Palestine and Gaza will be the main issues at the DNC protests, like they were at the RNC protests last week in Milwaukee, we will also defend and demand the expansion of immigrant, women’s, reproductive, LGBTQ and workers’ rights, as well as call for Black liberation, police accountability, and the end of police crimes against communities of color.
The scale of the protests against Netanyahu being planned for July 24 and for the DNC in August are proof that ours is a strong and energized movement. Regardless of who is on the Democratic ticket come August, we will be out in the streets with our unchanged demands, because we know that the U.S. will continue to pour money into the apartheid state until we make it impossible for them to do so
Under a scorching sun last Saturday, 14-year-old Tala Mahmoud was waiting in a food distribution line to secure a dish of lentils for her family in the displaced persons’ camp in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
Then, chaos.
In minutes, Israeli war planes dropped areported five 2,000 poundbombs on the area – an area the Israeli military had designated a “safe zone,” and which was filled with people who had been forcibly displaced from elsewhere in Gaza.
Tala’s slender body was sent into the air. Her plate of yellow lentils turned scarlet after being mixed with her blood.
Naglaa, Tala’s mother, told The Electronic Intifada what she saw:
“I was waiting for Tala to arrive when the world turned upside down. We heard massive explosions. Everything was destroyed. I could no longer see anything,” she said.
She ran to find her daughter at the food distribution point, but all she saw was blood and torn-apart bodies.
“I began yelling and weeping. And I screamed out to her, hoping she was alive and could hear me.”
Naglaa found Tala’s small hand next to a plate of lentils. Then she found her daughter’s left foot. And the horror continued.
“I found pieces of my daughter’s body on a tree,” Naglaa said. “I started screaming in terror.”
With her heart breaking, she said, she gathered what she could recover of Tala’s corpse and brought it inside an undamaged tent. She and her husband later buried their young daughter.
Tala’s mother said she can’t stop weeping over her daughter’s death.
And she is not alone.
“An arm dropped next to me”
At least90 peoplewere killed in an attack the Israeli military justified by saying it was targeting Muhammed Deif, the elusive Hamas military commander.
Days later, however, there is no indication that Deif was even in the area.
Those who were and survived tell similar horror stories about what occurred on the day the Israeli military bombed their tents.
“I miraculously survived the massacre, thank God.” Muhammad al-Wahidi, 20, said.
“I witnessed the massacre with my own eyes. There were missiles and explosions everywhere. I was running in fear to survive. An arm dropped next to me, a leg struck me, and my trousers were stained with blood. Whoever saw me thought I was injured.”
He said could not find a friend who had been next to him before the bombs hit. He still is not sure what happened to him.
“But the leg that hit me was in the same pants that he was wearing,” al-Wahidi recalled.
Al-Wahidi said he came across a youth whose limbs had been severed. The young man was pleading for help.
Survivors immediately started to transport the wounded and injured without waiting for ambulances, relying on animal-drawn carts and personal vehicles.
When emergency vehicles arrived on the scene, they too came underIsraeli attack.
Witnesses said the al-Mawasi attack destroyed hundreds of tents, an aid distribution site, a water desalination facility and a food distribution hospice. At least 300 people were injured.
Buried in sand
Samir Yousef, 50, said the camp had been peaceful before the Israeli attack.
“My family and I started our day as normal, filling gallons of water, searching for food and cleaning the tent,” he said.
“Without warning, the manic bombardment began, as if an earthquake had struck the area. The sky turned black,” Youssef recalled about the start of the carnage.
“Because of the intensity of the smoke, it was impossible to see even though it was the middle of the day.”
He said the missiles struck one after the other, until, “the sand covered me, my family, the tent, and all the tents surrounding us. We were buried in the sand.”
Yousef said he was holding his mobile phone at the time. And just then, his brother Ali, who had heard the blasts, called to check on him.
“I answered my brother while buried in the sand. Perhaps this was a genuine divine miracle,” Yousef said.
Ali came running to help his brother’s family out of the sand and soon a group of survivors were all digging with their hands, finally freeing Yousef and his family, shaken, but unscathed.
Survivors said weaponized drones started buzzing above their tents, shooting at anyone, while ambulances were prevented from reaching the site for 20 minutes.
This is the third time Yousef has narrowly escaped death, he told The Electronic Intifada.
He survived the Ahli Baptist hospitalmassacrein northern Gaza, theKhiammassacre in Rafah, and now the al-Mawasi massacre in Khan Yunis.
The bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on a house belonging to the al-Rai family are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on 13 July.
Omar AshtawyAPA images
Israel has escalated its attacks on United Nations facilities and other sites being used as emergency shelters for Palestinians displaced within Gaza in an apparent pressure tactic against Hamas and as part of a decades-long policy of massacring civilians to try to compel a surrender.
“The last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started,” Tamara Alrifai, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees,saidon Monday.
On Saturday, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the genocide, now in its tenth month, Israelkilled at least 90 Palestiniansin al-Mawasi.
Israel had unilaterally declared al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” despite a lack of infrastructure to support people it ordered to evacuate from other areas of Gaza.
Israel claimed to have targeted Muhammad Deif, the military chief of Hamas, and the resistance group’s battalion commander in the strikes on al-Mawasi.
Around half of those killed in the al-Mawasi attack were women and children,according tothe Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, indicating that most of the fatalities were civilians. At least 300 others were injured, “many of them women and children who lost limbs and/or were paralyzed in the attack,”according tothe Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
On Sunday, 17 people were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a UN school being used as a shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp.
At least 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed since October, the UN agency said on Tuesday.
At least 141 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza during the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministryreportedon Sunday, and another 80 people werereportedkilled on Monday.
Israel continued to shed Palestinian blood like wateron Tuesday, killing at least 57 people.
Among them were 17 people killed in an area housing displaced Palestinians al-Mawasi, with Israel claiming that it targeted a senior Islamic Jihad fighter.
At least 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school being used as a shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp. Journalist Muhammad Mishmish was among those killed, bringing to 160 the number of journalists killed in Gaza since October, the government media office in the territory said.
In that case too Israel claimed that it attacked “terrorists” it said were operating in the school.
“Pattern of conduct”
Following Saturday’s massacre in al-Mawasi, three prominent human rights organizations – Al Mezan, Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights –saidthat the attack is “part of a pattern of conduct in which Israel is destroying Palestinian life in Gaza.”
The attacks on the shelters housing displaced people are characteristic of the maximum pressure being exerted on civilians in Gaza as a key tactic of Israel’s military offensive since 7 October.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, in many cases repeatedly, undermining any sense of security and the ability of aid organizations to meet people’s needs in a sustained manner.
A near total siege on Gaza and the destruction of its food production capacity has caused the spread of famine and thirst. The bombing of health and sanitation facilities has promoted the proliferation of preventable disease while the systematic targeting of Gaza’s health facilities means that treatment is scarcely available.
Israel has attempted to justify its attacks on facilities sheltering displaced people without warning by claiming that members of Palestinian resistance groups were present – in total disregard fordistinction,proportionalityandprecaution, the fundamental principles of the laws of war – and has repeatedly accused Hamas and other resistance groups of embedding among civilians, thereby using them as human shields.
The three Palestinian rights groups said that “Israel’s commission of such crimes under the pretext of targeting [Hamas] military leaders is nothing but an attempt to justify the mass killing of Palestinians, which has been a recurring pattern over the last 10 months.”
The use of weapons “with enormous destructive power in such a densely populated and active area, indicates Israel’s clear intention to cause the maximum damage to Palestinians,” the rights groups added.
The Euro-Med Human Rights monitor echoed the office of the UN human rights chief by stating that regardless of the adherence of one party to a conflict, such as Hamas, to international humanitarian law, “the other party is still legally required to abide by and honor the provisions of the law.”
The Geneva-based group added that the use of American-sourced weapons in Israel’s attacks that violate the laws of war “makes the US – and any other country that supplies Israel with weapons – partners in the killing, which is occurring at a rate never before seen in the history of modern warfare.”
Instead, Israel’s powerful friends are keeping the arms flowing and working to undermine the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court’s application for arrest warrants against top Israeli officials, thereby prolonging the genocide in Gaza.
Middle East Eyereportedlast week that the US, which is not a state party to the court’s founding treaty but has supported its investigations of Russian leaders accused of war crimes in Ukraine, is “considering a legal bid” to challenge the ICC’s authority to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.
The publication added that the deliberations in Washington “come amid a lobbying campaign at the highest levels of the Biden administration to prevent the UK from dropping its legal appeal against the ICC.”
The situation of international impunity preserved principally by the US has allowed Israel to attack Palestinian civilians as a negotiation tactic in its indirect talks with Hamas. On Tuesday, following another day of massacres, Hamasblamedthe Biden administration for “the systematic killing of our people.”
Pressure
The prevailing analysis in Israel is that the assassinations of Hamas leaders like Muhammad Deif – though the resistance group denies he was killed on Saturday and Israel is unable to confirm his status – “will influence Hamas’ behavior in the negotiations over a hostage deal,”according toAmos Harel, a columnist with the Israeli dailyHaaretz.
“The most widely held view in Israel is that targeted killings, together with the Rafah offensive and raids elsewhere in Gaza, have added a degree of military pressure on Hamas and may cause Yahya Sinwar, the organization’s leader in Gaza, to become somewhat more flexible,” Harel added.
That view was reflected by an unnamed Israeli government source whotoldHaaretzthat Hamas’ “non-response” following Saturday’s attack in al-Mawasi “strengthens our view that our military action … is having an impact. Increasing the military pressure now will enable us to bring more hostages back alive.”
The CIA has reportedly made a similar assessment, according to comments made by director Bill Burns, the Biden administration’s point person in the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel, during a closed-door meeting asreported on by CNN.
But that perspective was challenged by Yossi Melman, anotherHaaretzanalyst, whowrotethat the Israeli military’s “operations in Lebanon and Gaza seem to show that the assassinations themselves have become an end in themselves.”
Politicians, military brass, the media class and public alike “hold that targeted killings will solve Israel’s war problems,” according to Melman, who warns that “people deceive themselves when they place hope in such tactics.”
Without agreement to end the war, “there will be no hostage deal,” Melman said.
The interminable war in Gaza, he added, proves that Israel, led by a prime minister who is solely motivated by his political survival, “has become indifferent to human life. Also for the lives of its own citizens, including the hostages.”
Failed strategy
History shows that the tactic of assassinating leaders and murdering civilians to be utterly futile, or even counterproductive from Israel’s perspective.
In 1997, Israel’s Mossad spy agency carried out a botched assassination attempt on Hamas leaderKhaled Meshaalin Amman, leading to a short-lived diplomatic crisis with Jordan.
Tel Aviv has succeeded in assassinating countless senior and lower level Hamas leaders over the decades, including in 2004 its founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and its Gaza leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. Jamila al-Shanti – founder of Hamas’ women’s organization, a former lawmaker in the Palestinian Legislative Council and al-Rantisi’s widow – became the first member of the faction’s politburo to be killed by Israel when she died in an airstrike in October 2023.
Despite these murders, the group has only gone from strength to strength, developing ever more sophisticated military capacities that Israel has for nearly 10 months failed to seriously dent, despite the unprecedented levels of death and destruction in Gaza.
The same is true in Lebanon.
In 1992, Israel assassinated Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary-general of Hizballah. He was succeeded by its current leader Hasan Nasrallah, who has built the organization into such a formidable military force that it iscapable of deterring Israelfrom mounting a full-scale attack on Lebanon.
Indeed, it is Israel that appears to have suffered the most militarily. This week its army admitted a severeshortage of tanks and ammunitiondue to the war in Gaza. And facing a shortage of soldiers, it ismoving to extendmandatory service for reservists.
Desire to break resistance fuels genocide
It is likely frustration over its military failure against the Palestinian resistance that is driving Israel to escalate its massacres of civilians in the hope that it can achieve through genocide what it has failed to achieve on the battlefield: a Palestinian surrender.
Israel has since its violentfoundingused massacres of civilians,including (if not especially) in Gaza, as its major strategy against those who resist it. This was codified into the so-calledDahiya doctrine, named for Beirut’s southern suburb where Israel systematically targeted civilian infrastructure during its 2006 war on Lebanon.
That did not save Israel from defeat in that war, and it only increased Hizballah’s resolve to further improve its ability to counter Israel militarily.
With each episode, Israel has increased the number of people it is willing to kill, to the point that it is now committing genocide and there appears to be no limit to how far it is willing to go.
Hamas’ position, Netanyahu’s obstruction
For their part, Palestinians understand that without guarantees of a permanent end to the genocidal war and an end to their subjugation by Israel, any ceasefire will only be a prelude to the next massacre. That is why Hamas negotiators, while keen to end the bloodshed in Gaza, are holding firm to their fundamental demands.
An unnamed Palestinian official described as close to the negotiationstold Reutersthat “Hamas wants the war to end, not at any price. It says it has shown the flexibility needed and is pushing the mediators to get Israel to reciprocate.”
The Palestinian official said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preventing an agreement from being reached by “adding more conditions that restrict the return of displaced people to northern Gaza, and to keep control over the Rafah border crossing with Egypt,” Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Netanyahu’s stalling tactics are seemingly buoyed as international attention hasturned awayfrom the plight of civilians in Gaza and as protest by outraged publics has failed to end their governments’ support for Israel’s extermination of the Palestinian people.
With the US and UKcommitted to regime change in Gaza, Israel’s genocidal campaign will continue to destroy all aspects of life in the territory. And each day that goes by without an end to the war increases the likelihood that it will bleed out into the wider region.
In a speech last week, Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah reiterated that the Lebanese resistance group would only stop firing toward Israel if an agreement is reached to end the war in Gaza, implicitly rejecting “the diplomatic off-ramp proposed by the US,”according toanalyst Amal Saad.
Emphasizing that Hizballah is following Hamas’ lead, Nasrallahsaidthat “we are with you until the very end.”
Ali Abunimah contributed background information and analysis regarding Israel’s assassination policy.
Coalition Urges Senators to Stop 'Illegal, Ineffective' US Airstrikes in Yemen
"Instead of bombing Yemen," one group said, "the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East.
An anti-war coalition of over 50 groups this week wrote to four U.S. senators who have raised alarm about American airstrikes in Yemen and the Red Sea to call for legislation that would stop "illegal, ineffective, and deadly unauthorized" bombings.
The coalition on Wednesday wrote to Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Todd Young, (R-Ind.), who in January sent a jointletterto President Joe Biden stressing that "there is no current congressional authorization for offensive U.S. military action against the Houthis" and demanding answers about recent strikes against the group.
"We are grateful for your long-standing efforts in support of both ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen, as well as your defense of Congress' war powers, including your joint letter," the coalition wrote to the senators. "We write today to urge you to take necessary actions to defend the role of Congress in authorizing war and military action, as the framers of our Constitution intended, and to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution to this end."
The coalition includes Action Corps, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Just Foreign Policy, National Iranian American Council, Peace Action, RootsAction.org, Veterans for Peace, and dozens of other groups across the ideological spectrum.
"Unfortunately, about six months after the strikes began, there is scant evidence that the strikes have been either strategically smart or successful, as you correctly predicted when you wrote that the unauthorized strikes 'will not deter the Houthi attacks,'" the coalition continued, citing the January letter.
As the groups detailed:
Far from being deterred, the Houthis have actually expanded the range of their attacks, with an attackin late Apriltargeting an Israeli-linked ship sailing 375 miles off the coast of Yemen. More recently, Houthi attacks have shown a 'significant increase in effectiveness,' according to security firm Ambrey, including through the use of drone boats and double-tap strikes. Houthi military officials haveannounced plansfor further escalation of their attacks if no cease-fire is reached inGaza. All of this was foreseen by experts, who widely predictedthatthe U.S. strikes would only strengthen the Houthis' narrative,contributingto greater popularityboth at homeandacross the Muslim world, and helping themenlist tens of thousandsof new fighters.
"To our knowledge, the administration has not even made a good-faith attempt to engage with the valid constitutional concerns and substantive policy critiques you have raised alongside dozens ofHouse members,experts, andadvocates," the coalition noted. "This leads us to believe that the administration has effectively conceded that it does not have valid legal and constitutional authority to engage in these strikes."
"The strikes have nonetheless continued unabated for months, with hundreds of missiles launched in Yemen, including an attack on May 30th thatkilledat least 16 people and injured about 42 people," the groups added. "This threatens to deny the American people critical congressional debate and oversight regarding this dangerous and strategically dubious military action, and could be cited by the executive branch to attempt to justify similar or even more expansive unauthorized military actions in other contexts in the future."
The coalition is calling on the bipartisan group of senators to "to move swiftly to rein in these unauthorized and unconstitutional strikes by introducing a War Powers Resolution to remove U.S. participation from hostilities in Yemen, until or unless Congress authorizes such action."
Multiple coalition members echoed the letter's demands on social media Thursday. Peace Actiondeclaredthat "Congress needs to flex its constitutional duty to rein in unauthorized U.S. missile strikes."
Action Corpsemphasizedthat Biden—who is seeking reelection in November against former Republican President Donald Trump—"has no authority to continue dropping bombs on Yemen."
"With each illegal bombing, peace is delayed, and more children are starved to death. It's time for bipartisan action to ensure only Congress can declare war, regardless of which party is in office," the group added. "Instead of bombing Yemen, the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."
Ten UN experts have sounded the alarm on Israel’s “starvation campaign” against the Gaza Strip, saying there is no denying that famine is occurring there.
At least nine people have been killed in anIsraeli attackon Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, including five children, who were playing in the street.
Dozens killed in Israeli attack on a school in Khan Younis
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack that struck a school sheltering families in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
It cited local medical sources who said Israeli fighters jets targeted the entrance of the al-Awda school in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis. Several others have also been wounded.
We’ll bring you more soon
“Complete Dehumanization”: Israel Killed Over 800 Palestinians in 11 Days
“We can no longer accept the statement that Israel is taking ‘all precautions’ — this is just propaganda.”
A Palestinian woman and a child cry as they mourn the death of a loved one following Israeli bombardment, outside a hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on June 7, 2024.BASHAR TALEB / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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Israel’s recent massacres in Gaza killed over 800 Palestinians in less than two weeks — an extreme rate of brutal killing that has become normalized in western circles due to the “complete dehumanization” of Palestinians, a human rights group said this week.
From June 1 to June 11, Israeli forces killed over 800 Palestinians and wounded over 2,400 as they carried out bombardments and raids across Gaza, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported. This is an average of over 72 Palestinians killed each day at the hands of Israeli forces.
This includes Israel’sassault of Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturdaythat killed 274 Palestinians, including 64 children, and injured 698 others, with Israeli forces carrying out one of the most deadly single attacks of their genocidal siege so far in order to retrieve four Israelis held hostage in Gaza. The attack was carried out on a bustling civilian center in the middle of the day,raising questionsabout whether Israeli forces violated international law.
MSF condemned Israel’s “propaganda” that it is not committing war crimes in Gaza.
“How can the killing of more than 800 people in a single week, including small children, plus the maiming of hundreds more, be considered a military operation adhering to international humanitarian law?,” said Brice de le Vingne, who heads MSF’s emergency unit, in a statement. “We can no longer accept the statement that Israel is taking ‘all precautions’ — this is just propaganda.”
The 11-day death toll also includes at least 70 Palestinians killed and over 300 wounded due toheavy Israeli shellingin central Gaza on June 4, MSF said; and at least 40 Palestinians killed and 74 wounded on June 6, whenIsrael bombeda UN school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat. The killings of hundreds of Palestinians in other Israeli attacks,ranging acrosssouthern,centraland northern Gaza, in the first days of June have otherwise been largely ignored by news outlets, and are hardly documented by official sources.
The fact that Palestinian death has become a commonplace, everyday occurrence is a show of the widespread and “complete” dehumanization of Palestinians, MSF said. Indeed, Palestinians have been begging for decades for themselves, their families, and their childrento be recognized as human beings, and not just as racialized subjects of Israel’s never-ending bloodbath orweapons manufacturers’ testing.
“Since October (and certainly before), the dehumanization of Palestinians has been a hallmark of this war,” de le Vingne said. “Catch-all phrases like ‘war is ugly’ act as blinders to the fact that children too young to walk are being dismembered, eviscerated, and killed.”
"Blocking humanitarian aid and creating the conditions for famine is not only an act of extreme cruelty—using starvation as an act of war," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "It is a war crime."
The United Nations relief agency for Palestinians said Thursday that Israeli authorities continue to hinder aid efforts by failing to approve requests for delivery and permits, as two other U.N. agencies separately issued dire warnings about large-scale starvation inGazathis week.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency forPalestineRefugees in the Near East (UNRWA) saidIsraelhas frequently denied the agency's aid-related requests,The Guardian reported. The World Health Organization said Thursday that there have been32 casesof deaths from malnutrition in Gaza—mostly of children below five years old—since October 7 and warned of the “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions” faced by a significant proportion of Gazans.
As part of itsquestfor "a green and peaceful future," Greenpeace International on Tuesdayurgedthe Israeli government and Hamas to "unequivocally agree to support and abide by" a recent United Nations Security Councilresolutionand declare "an immediate and permanent cease-fire" in theGazaStrip.
"We call for the bullets and bombs to be silenced so that the growing voices for peace can be heard," the environmental advocacy group said in a statement that acknowledges "the horrific events" of October 7—in which Hamas-led militantskilledmore than 1,100 people inIsraeland took around 240 hostages—and the over 37,000 Palestinians who Israeli forces haveslaughteredsince.
In addition to the rising death toll and at least 85,523 Palestinians injured by the war, "the majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes," Greenpeace highlighted. "Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, famine and disease are rife, nowhere and no one is safe. Sanity and humanity must be restored in the face of this unfolding genocide."
"Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations."
The organization pointed to South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as well as a U.N. commission's report from last week thatconcludesthe Israeli government and Palestinian militants have committed war crimes.
"We call on Hamas to immediately release all hostages," Greenpeace said. "We call for the Israeli government to immediately end the blockades on the supply of food, water, medicine, and fuel to the people of Gaza and release all illegally detained civilians."
"Violence is never the answer, it only brings more violence," the group emphasized. "Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations towards a lasting peace built on safety, justice, and equal rights for all. International law must be upheld."
The United States and European countries that arearmingIsrael havefacedinternational pressure to use their leverage to halt crimes by its forces. Greenpeace called for "a global embargo on all arms sales and transfers that could be used to further increase the toll of war crimes to be answered by both sides once this war and conflict ends."
"Greenpeace recognizes the deep historic roots that need to be discussed and negotiated if a permanent peace is to be established," the group said. "Greenpeace calls for an end to the illegal occupation ofPalestine. Greenpeace supports the UNSC resolution ambition that 'Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant U.N. resolutions."
The Greenpeace statement was released the same day that the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published apreliminary assessmentof the "environmental impact of the conflict in Gaza," which features three main sections. The first part addresses the state of the environment and natural resources in the Hamas-governed enclave before October 7.
The second section discusses topics including water, wastewater treatment, and sewage systems; solid waste collection and treatment; destruction of infrastructure and related debris; energy, fuel, and associated infrastructure; marine and coastal environments; terrestrial ecosystems, soil, and cultivated lands; and air pollution.
The third section focuses on chemicals and waste associated with armed conflicts as well as construction, destruction, and flooding of tunnels in Gaza—which, as the report notes, "is a small, densely populated coastal area, the environment of which has been affected by repeated escalations of the decadeslong conflict, unplanned urbanization, and population growth."
"We urgently need a cease-fire to save lives and restore the environment."
Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director,saidin a statement that "not only are the people of Gaza dealing with untold suffering from the ongoing war, the significant and growing environmental damage in Gaza risks locking its people into a painful, long recovery."
"While many questions remain regarding the exact type and quantity of contaminants affecting the environment in Gaza, people are already living with the consequences of conflict-related damage to environmental management systems and pollution today," she continued. "Water and sanitation have collapsed. Critical infrastructure continues to be decimated. Coastal areas, soil, and ecosystems have been severely impacted."
"All of this is deeply harming people's health, food security, and Gaza's resilience," Andersen added. "We urgently need a cease-fire to save lives and restore the environment, to enable Palestinians to start to recover from the conflict and rebuild their lives and livelihoods in Gaza."
The UNEP report and Greenpeace's statement followed astudythat was posted to SSRN earlier this month and is currently under peer review. Ben Neimark, a co-author of the preprint and lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, said that "while the world's attention is rightly focused on the humanitarian catastrophe, the climate consequences of this conflict are also catastrophic."
As Common Dreams reported, Neimark's team estimated that up to 200,000 Gaza buildings were destroyed or damaged during just the first four months of the war, and the resulting climate costs were greater than the annual emissions of each of the world's 135 lowest-emitting countries.
A Palestinian boy sits as people search the rubble of a family destroyed in overnight Israeli strikes in the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 18, 2024.
A new OHCHR report details how Israeli "attacks of an apparent indiscriminate nature" fit a wider pattern for hundreds of such bombings that may violate international laws of war.
The United Nations Human Rights Office released a report Wednesday concluding that the Israeli military's repeated use of heavy weaponry—including 2,000-pound bombssupplied bythe United States—in theGazaStrip has likely violated international laws of war barring the targeting of civilians and disproportionate attacks.
The newreportspecifically examines six Israeli attacks that the U.N. Human Rights Offices says are "emblematic" of theIsraelDefense Forces' (IDF) broader assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 37,000 people, unleashed a hellish humanitarian crisis, anddestroyedmuch of the Palestinian enclave's infrastructure—includingeducation, healthcare, and water facilities.
The attacks analyzed by the U.N. took place between October 9 and December 2 of last year and involved the use of 2,000-pound, 1,000-pound, and 250-pound bombs on residential buildings, a market, refugee camps, and a school. At least 218 people were killed in the six Israeli attacks, the U.N. found, and evidence suggests the actual number of fatalities "could be much higher."
The report says Israeli forces used roughly nine 2,000-pound bombs in a December 2 attack on a neighborhood in Gaza City, causing destruction across a distance of 130 meters.
"These attacks of an apparent indiscriminate nature are among hundreds of a similar nature, giving rise to the appearance of a pattern of attacks over months," the report states. "The pattern of Israeli strikes exemplified by the six incidents above indicates that the IDF may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack—fundamental principles of international humanitarian law on the conduct of hostilities—in the course of its attacks in Gaza since 7 October 2023."
"The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimize to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel's bombing campaign."
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in astatementWednesday that "the requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimize to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel's bombing campaign."
The human rights office's report is the latest of severalrecent U.N. analysesaccusing Israeli forces of committing grave war crimes in Gaza—including torture, using starvation as a weapon of war, andgenocide—as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahudemands more weaponryfrom the U.S. to continue its devastating assault.
ReutersreportedWednesday that "Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah," killing at least eight people and forcing more residents to run for their lives. At least amillionpeople have fled Rafah since Israel began invading the city last month.
"Residents said the tanks moved into five neighborhoods after midnight,"Reutersnoted Wednesday. "Heavy shelling and gunfire hit the tents of displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, further to the west of the coastal enclave... Residents said Israeli army forces blew up several homes in western Rafah, which had sheltered over half of Gaza's 2.3 million people before last month, when Israel began its ground offensive and forced most of the population to head northwards."
A team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based in Israel assisted in the operationby Dave DeCampJune 9, 2024 at 5:36 pm ETCategoriesNewsTagsGaza,Israel,Palestine
Israel receivedintelligence supportfrom the US in its Saturday operation in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp that killed over 200 Palestinians and freed four Israeli hostages.
The intelligence support included information provided by US drone flights over Gaza. The USbegan flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gazadays after October 7 and deployed special operations forces to Israel, demonstrating that US military support for Israel goes beyond providing weapons.
The Washington Postreportedthat a team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based at the US Embassy in Jerusalem provided the intelligence support. Besides the drone flights, the US provided communications intercepts, and Israel also received intelligence support from the UK.
Local residentssaid the Israeli special forces who carried out the raidwere disguised as displaced Palestinians from Rafah, and others entered the camp in an aid truck. The Israeli military denied it used an aid truck, but Israeli media reported Israeli soldiers meant to blend in as Arabs were part of the attack. Israeli warplanes pounded Nuseirat as the Israeli commandos on the ground moved to locate the hostages.
An injured child is assisted at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the aftermath of an Israeli strike in the central Gaza Strip, June 8, 2024. REUTERS/Doaa Rouqa
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 274 Palestinians were killed in the attack on Nuseirat, and 678 were wounded. Gaza’s Media Office said64 of the dead were children, and 57 were women. The total death toll in Gaza since October 7has surpassed 37,000.
Israel claimed it killed less than 100 people in the assault, while the US said it didn’t know how many people died. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan celebrated the assault and also acknowledged that “innocent people” were killed.
“We, the United States, are not in a position today to make a definitive statement about that. The Israeli defense forces have put out one number. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has put out another number,”Sullivan said. “But we do know this … Innocent people were tragically killed in this operation.”
Hamas alleged that the Israeli attack killed three other Israeli hostages, including an American citizen. The Palestinian groupreleased a video of three corpses, but they were unidentifiable.
The genocide in Israeli prisons
Families of Palestinian prisoners are kept in the dark about the fate of their loved ones at a time when Israeli prison authorities are creating conditions unfit for human life.
Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians since last October has extended beyond the daily mass death, displacement, and starvation of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Behind the bars of Israeli prisons, Israel has been waging war against Palestinian prisoners, creating conditions that make the continuation of human life impossible. The effects of this brutal campaign have reverberated among prisoners’ families outside of jail, who are watching their loved ones being systematically starved, beaten, tortured, and degraded.
Shortly after October 7, Israel imposed a new set of rules in its cell blocks. In some detention centers like Ofer near Ramallah, the Israeli army was reportedly handed over control of the prison, while the Israel Prison Services guards were given a free hand in dealing with Palestinian inmates inside the jail sections. This shift was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinian detainees who were arrested after October 7,doubling the prisoner populationas early on as mid-October. This included prisoners from Gaza, for whom the hardest part of the treatment was reserved.
In mid-May, CNN released an exposé based on thetestimonies of Israeli whistleblowersabout the horrific treatment of Palestinians from Gaza at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman, now containing a detention center. The whistleblower testimonies detail a number of medieval practices to which Palestinian prisoners have been subjected, including being strapped down to beds while blindfolded and made to wear diapers, having unqualified medical trainees conduct procedures on them without anesthesia, having dogs set on them by prison guards, being regularly beaten or put into stress positions for offenses as minor as peeking beneath their blindfolds, having zip-tie wounds fester to the point of requiring amputation, and a host of other horrific measures.
Detainee testimonies repeated many of these same accounts but also included additional disturbing accounts of sexual violence, including testimonies of rape and forcing detainees to sit on metal sticks that caused anal bleeding and “unbearable pain.”
On June 6, theNew York Timespublished another story about Sde Teimanbased on interviews with former detainees and Israeli military officers, doctors, and soldiers who worked at the prison, bringing new horrors to light about the treatment of Gazan prisoners. Detainee testimonies repeated many of these same accounts but also included additional disturbing accounts of sexual violence, including testimonies of rape and forcing detainees to sit on metal sticks that caused anal bleeding and “unbearable pain.”
The picture that emerges is one in which Israeli authorities are putting Palestinians in animal-like conditions calculated to torture, humiliate, and in man cases, to bring about their death. In March, the Israeli dailyHaaretzreported that some 27 Palestinian detaineeshad died in detention in two facilities, including Sde Teiman.
Meanwhile, the families of Palestinian detainees, both from Gaza and the West Bank, have been left to wonder about the fate of their loved ones for months on end as horror stories continue to trickle out of Israeli prisons from those who are released, further feeding the anxieties of the families.
Death by beating
According to Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups, Israel has arrested no less than 8,800 Palestinians since October from Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. Many have been released, including as part of a prisoners’ exchange between Israel and Hamas in November. Currently, some 9,300 Palestinians continue to be held behind bars, including 78 women, 250 children, and more than 3,400 detainees without charge or trial under the military legal system of administrative detention.
Thaer Taha, a Palestinian in his forties, was one of them until last April when he was released after two years of administrative detention. Taha was arrested in May 2022 and was given a detention order of six months. By October 7, he had spent almost a year and a half in Israeli jails.
“The day his detention order expired, we prepared ourselves to welcome my father at home,” Guevara Taha, his 22-year-old daughter, toldMondoweiss. “My mother made his favorite meal, my siblings and I dressed up, and friends and family members prepared to receive him at the checkpoint,” says Guevara. “That day, the lawyer called us and said that the occupation had renewed my father’s detention order for another six months,” she recalls.
On October 7, Thaer Taha was a month away from ending his second detention period. Since his arrest, he had been receiving family visits once a month.
Then, everything changed. Israel suspended all family visits for Palestinian inmates and began a series of unprecedented repressive measures against them. “Even those who had experienced the occupation jails in the 1970s and the 1980s said that they had seen nothing like the past eight months in the occupation’s prisons,” Thaer Taha says, referring to past periods that had hitherto been regarded as the highest point in Israel’s repression of Palestinian prisoners.
“Even those who had experienced the occupation jails in the 1970s and the 1980s said that they had seen nothing like the past eight months in the occupation’s prisons.”
Thaer Taha
“The organized daily life inside cells, which so many [prisoners] had struggled for over the years, suddenly disappeared. Books and other personal belongings were confiscated and we were no longer allowed to have any kind of activity or representation,” explains Taha. “Guards began to violently raid our cells on a daily basis, food quality immediately decreased, and covers were taken away. We were intentionally put into insecurity, hunger, and cold. At the same time, the cells became crowded. We were 12 people in a 9 by 4 meter cell.”
The worsening of detention conditions for Palestinian inmates had already begun before October 7. In February 2023, Israel’s security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir began to reduce water access for Palestinian prisoners, beginning by limiting shower time to four minutes per day. The step caused outrage among human rights groups at the time. After October 7, it went to a whole new level.
“In mid-December, our water supply inside each cell was reduced to one hour per day. We used this hour to store as much water as we could, and since we only had one bottle in the cell, we filled empty cans,” Thaer says. “This situation continued for three months, until the beginning of the month of Ramadan, in mid-March.”
In November, Hamas and Israel struck a prisoner exchange deal. Around 150 Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli jails in exchange for 50 Israeli captives. The released Palestinians gave testimonies of severe beating and sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards. In April, the Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups said that 16 identified Palestinians had died in Israeli jails as a result of mistreatment since October 7. More had died but weren’t identified.
In November, 38-year-old Palestinian Thaer Abu Asab was announced dead in the Negev prison, after being beaten by Israeli guards. A month later, Israel admitted that Abu Asab’s death was a result of being beaten by 19 prison guards at the same time.
“I was in the Negev prison when Thaer Abu Asab was killed, but in a different section,” remembered Thaer Taha. “It was November 18, just after the morning head count, when we began to hear a lot of screaming. Then some prisoners were moved to the section I was in and they told us what had happened.”
“The guards were very aggressive during the morning count and every day they beat someone. That morning, Thaer Abu Asab dared to ask one of the guards about the news, if the truce in Gaza had begun or not,” Taha continued. “The guard told his commander, who told Abu Asab that he would show him the truce in Gaza, and he ordered him beaten. They beat him so brutally that one of the guards struck him with a thick wooden hoe handle on the head, and he immediately lost consciousness and bled to death.”
The suspected guards were reportedly put under “strict restrictions” following aprobe into the incidentbut were set free all the same. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that the guards were dealing with “the scum of humanity,” and should not be smeared before an investigation.
Cut off from the world
While this news was being made public, prisoners’ families had no contact with their loved ones in Israeli jails and had no idea about their conditions. Guevara Taha described it as “a constant anguish, thinking all the time about what could be happening to my father, what conditions he is in, preventing us from sleeping.”
“We the families of prisoners have Whatsapp groups where we exchange information, so whenever a lawyer manages to know anything about one prisoner in a given jail, or if a prisoner manages to access a phone and make contact, they would give information about those who are held with them, and we share that news on WhatsApp,” said Guevara. “We spent all the time on WhatsApp expecting any news, and the news was never encouraging. It was either that they had no access to water, food or electricity, and the anguish continued.”
“My father spent 13 years in jail, eight of them as an administrative detainee, so I grew up knowing his news from prison more than having him at home, to the point that I didn’t get used to calling him ‘dad,’ I just called him by his name,” she continued. “But this time it was different, I was seriously fearing for his life, thinking of whether he has eaten or if he can even sleep at night.”
In February, areport by UN expertsconcluded that some Palestinian prisoners had been subject to sexual abuse and that at least two female prisoners had been raped in Israeli jails. The next day, Palestinian prisoners’ families and rights groups held a public press conference in Ramallah, where they announced that they had halted all coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, accusing it of inaction.
“The Red Cross had stopped giving us updates on the prisoners’ conditions since October 7, and even though they told us that it was because the occupation authorities had banned them from visiting the prisoners, they didn’t do anything else about it, and they didn’t speak up,” exclaimed Guevara.
Her father adds, “Our lawyers have been and continue to be banned from visiting prisoners, intimidated, and prevented from doing their work, but they speak out, they denounce it, and the prisoners were very offended by this silence.”
In November,the ICRC said publiclythat it “hasn’t been able to visit Palestinian detainees since October 7.” In January, ICRC’s Middle East directortold media outletsthat Israel and Hamas were banning it from visiting captives on both sides. The ICRC never called publicly to end the suspension of visits, and has maintained that it is “actively engaging with the relevant authorities on this critical matter in our usual bilateral and confidential dialogue.”
Although Israel began to allow some family visits in recent months, most Palestinian prisoners remain banned from any contact with their families.
“Between October 7 and my release in late April, I was not allowed a single family visit, and my lawyer was allowed to visit me only twice,” indicates Thaer Taha. “During my time in prison, shortly after October 7, my son who is 17 was wounded by an Israeli bullet in the leg while taking part in a protest. I didn’t learn about it until my release in April. That is how cut off prisoners have been from the rest of the world.”
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Genocide Prevention Group Says 'Israel Must Be Stopped Now'
"Even if there were legitimate doubts about Israel's genocide, there is no doubt that Israel is committing atrocity crimes of the most barbaric kind," the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention said.
A U.S.-based group dedicated to preventing genocide blasted what it called "the cynical lies and propaganda" from Israeli and U.S. leaders who deny that Israel's obliteration ofGazais genocidal, while imploring humanity to stop the slaughter.
In astatementpublished Monday on social media, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (LIGP) argued that "one can have different views about the definition of genocide, but one may not use definitional disputes to deny genocide."
"If a genocide may be occurring, every nation is compelled by customary law to try to stop it," asserted the Philadelphia-based group named after Raphael Lemkin, the 20th-century Polish lawyer who is credited with coining the word genocide in the 1940s.
"Let us be clear:Israelis committing genocide in Gaza. The U.S. is complicit in genocide," LIGP said. "These are not political statements. They are statements that are made from knowledge and experience."
"Nevertheless, you do not need a Ph.D. , a law degree, or X-ray vision to see the genocidal dimensions of Israel's carnage in Gaza. It is clear in the behavior of the state and its military, on full display in yesterday's horrific bombardment of a Rafah camp," the group added, referring to theattackon a refugee encampment in the southern city's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood that killed at least 45 people and wounded hundreds of others, including many women and children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahucalledthe strike a "tragic mistake." Two days later, at least 21 more Palestinians werekilledin another Israel Defense Forces attack on a different refugee camp in southern Gaza.
LIGP said that "even if there were legitimate doubts about Israel's genocide, there is no doubt that Israel is committing atrocity crimes of the most barbaric kind."
"Israel must be stopped," the group stressed. "Israel must be stopped now."
LIGP continued:
We are disgusted by Western leaders, especially in the USA, Germany, and the U.K. They have demonstrated not only that they don't care one bit about genocide prevention and human rights, but also that they are willing to allow an ally to commit atrocity crimes while they offer material and diplomatic support. It is reprehensible and the individuals involved in this gaslighting campaign should be deeply ashamed. They should also be put on trial.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan last weekformally appliedfor warrants to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination committed on and after October 7.
Israeli and U.S. leaders deny there is genocide in Gaza. U.S. President Joe Bidensaidin October that he had "no confidence" in Palestinian health officials' Gaza casualty reports—figures deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, international and Israeli mainstream media, and eventhe U.S. State Department.
Biden, who early in the war declared his "unwavering" support for Israel, hasapprovedbillions of dollars of new U.S. military aid for the key Middle Eastern ally. His administration hasrepeatedly sidesteppedCongress to expedite weapons transfers to Israel. The U.S. has also provided diplomatic cover for Netanyahu's far-right government byvetoingseveral United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions.
The International Court of Justice is currentlydeterminingwhether Israel is committing genocide, as alleged by South Africa and over 30 countries and regional blocs supporting the case. The ICJ recentlyorderedIsrael to immediately halt its invasion of Rafah. Israel hasignoredthe legally binding order, promptingcallsfor punitive action including sanctions.
According to Palestinian officials and international human rights defenders, at least 36,096 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed during Israel's 235-day assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack that left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others taken prisoner. At least 81,136 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets. Upward of 11,000 other Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
Meanwhile,faminein the north and widespread starvation throughout Gaza have been exacerbated by Israel's blockade of the besieged coastal enclave, where around 90% of the population have been forcibly displaced.
"Humanity has a choice: Either we decide that our children can all be killed whenever a superior force alleges that 'terrorists' are among us, or we decide that under no circumstances will we allow these superior forces to lay waste to our world any longer," LIGP said. "We each must choose and act accordingly. The watershed moment is now."
At least hundreds of legal and human rights experts around the world—including Israelis—accuseIsrael of genocide. In March, the United Nations Human Rights Councilpublisheda draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
On Sunday, Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier—a Jewish Holocaust survivor—reiteratedhisearlier assertionthat Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In an interview withCNN's Fareed Zakaria, Neier explained how his assessment of Israel's conduct has evolved during the war.
"I thought Israel had a right to retaliate against Hamas, and I thought Israel had a right to try to incapacitate Hamas so that it would never be able to do anything like that again," Neier said. "But I was disturbed by some of the actions of Israel, by the use of very large weapons,2,000-pound bombs, which are utterly inappropriate in a crowded urban area."
Neier also condemned Israeli and U.S. officials'effortsto equate criticism of Israel's policies and practices with antisemitism.
"Antisemitism has been a great scourge," he said, "but it doesn't insulate the Israeli government from being held to the same standards as other governments have to be held to around the world."
Yumna Patel talks to Hassa Ben Imran from Law for Palestine, and Dave Reed speaks with Spencer Ackerman about the “bombshell” ICC indictments of Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
The current American threats to sanction the ICC could spell the death of International Law. Whatever little hope people had for a just international system will disappear.
AsIsraelcontinues its merciless assault onGaza, there is at least some sanity taking hold in regard to U.S. policy on military assistance to Israel. Several weapons shipments have beenput on holdby the Biden Administration and congressional leadership over concerns about Israeli conduct in its ongoing slaughter in Gaza. This is surely the result of relentless protests, organizing and advocacy by the broad, growing movement for a ceasefire.
Currently, as Israel surrounds and attacks Rafah, and ceasefire talks sputter, the U.S. government is poised to likely give Israel a clean bill of health in a report to Congress.
All that is required of Congress and the president is to do their jobs and uphold existing U.S. and international law.
The report, expected any day now, is required byNational Security Memorandum - 20(NSM-20), and is not specific to Israel. It simply states that countries receiving U.S. military assistance must follow U.S. and international law regarding the laws of war and allow humanitarian assistance to reach civilians. Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Colombia, Ukraine and Israel are the countries addressed in the report. Israel has speciously asserted that it is in compliance.
NSM-20 was adopted by the Biden administration in a compromise with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), supported by 18 other senators, when his and other amendments were denied a vote in the recent military supplemental appropriations process. Subsequently,88 House membersled by U.S. Reps. Jason Crow (D-Col.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote to the Administration expressing their support for holding Israel accountable under NSM-20 andsection 620Iof the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits U.S. security assistance to any state which restricts U.S. humanitarian aid.
Reports by the executive branch to Congress are ordinarily obscure and dry, read only by committed policy wonks. This one is justifiably getting more attention, as it is a tool for accountability that merely restates existing U.S. and international law, at a time when ending the calamity in Gaza could not be more urgent. The fact that the report may be delayed (it was due May 8) reflects internal divisions within the State Department not just about Israel’s fallacious claim of compliance, but what to recommend to the executive branch in terms of possible action against Israel.
This is likely the first bite at the apple regarding the NSM-20 process, as peace advocates, and our allies in Congress, see it as a potential lever to impact U.S. policy toward Israel, hopefully to bring about an end to the war.
Congressional action is of course only one form of pressure on the Biden Administration to end military aid to Israel and press for a ceasefire. The remarkable spread of campusprotestsand consistent "No Preference" or "Uncommitted" Democratic presidential primary votes in state after state are powerful statements of no confidence in Biden’s bear hug of support of Israel. All that is required of Congress and the president is to do their jobs and uphold existing U.S. and international law. The question is whether they can, for once, stand up to the pro-apartheid, anti-Palestinian human rights lobby and do the right thing.
Kevin Martin is the president of Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund, with over 40 years experience as a peace and justice organizer.
As I am right now heading to South Africa for a global anti-apartheid conference for Palestine, I am recieving major news. The U.S. has halted an ammunition shipment to Israel. This development is a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to advocate for justice and accountability in the region and makes it clear that our movement is working
The decision by the Biden administration marks the first time since the October 7th attack and the first time ever for this administration that such a shipment has been halted, signaling a potential shift in policy and a recognition of the need for accountability in the use of military aid. President Biden said last week in a "law and order speech" that the student protests were having no affect on U.S. policy, but actions speak louder than words and this action is significant.
The halting of a shipment of ammunition is certainly coming too late with around 35,000 confirmed dead, another around 10,000 presumed to be buried beneath the rubble and 'full-blown famine' in north Gaza but it is also coming at a significant time. Yom Hashoah, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, begins tonight and we must ensure that "Never again" not be just a hollow slogan, and the lives lost in the Holocaust, including family members of mine who lived in the Polish village of Babiak, adjacent to the Chelmno death camp not be in vain. Never Again must be a commitment to ensuring that the atrocities of the past are never repeated for anyone, anywhere. Right now, this means the people of Gaza, who have endured unimaginable suffering and deserve to live in peace and security.
For those of us deeply committed to ending the cycle of violence and oppression, the news of an ammunition shipment being halted is both encouraging and sobering. It is encouraging because it demonstrates that our collective efforts to apply pressure—from progressive lawmakers to international institutions, from student protesters to public opinion—are making an impact. Sobering, because we recognize that this action comes too late for the countless lives already lost and communities devastated by violence.
Nevertheless, if this represents a step in the right direction, then it reaffirms our belief that change is possible. We must continue to hold our leaders accountable and demand policies that prioritize human rights, justice, and dignity for all people.
We understand the urgency of the situation, particularly in light of reports indicating the potential for further escalation of violence in Gaza as Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu is promising, no matter what, that he will invade Rafah where 1.3 million people are sheltering. The Biden administration's concern over the impending invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah underscores the critical importance of continued diplomatic efforts to prevent further bloodshed and address the root causes of the conflict. There is no doubt that this move by the Biden administration is the result of dedicated advocacy and protest. We must not let up until there is a ceasefire, the unfettered entry of humanitarian aid, an end to the U.S. supplying weapons for genocide, and concrete steps to achieve a just and lasting peace with equality and security for all.
I encourage you to read more about this development in the news article from Axios.. Click here to read more.
In closing, we want to express our gratitude to each and every one of you for your unwavering commitment to peace and justice. Together, we can and will continue to work towards a future where all people can live free from fear and oppression.
A woman and children react following Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on April 29, 2024.
Call to drop the Charges on Pro-Palestinian UWM Students the Milwaukee 5!
The Milwaukee Five, are students from UWM facing charges from their peaceful sit-in on February 9, 2024, at the Chancellor's Office. Protesting is not a crime!
UWM called multiple police precincts to respond to the sit-in and has refused to drop the charges.
The students asked Chancellor Mone about changes they'd like to see on campus related to the war in Gaza. Previous requests to talk were denied. Their demands include:
1. Renaming the Golda Meir Library
2. Ending study-abroad trips to Israel
3. Divesting from weapon manufacturers that aid the war on Gaza. Stop University complicity in genocide in Gaza and no more support of the Israeli Apartheid State.
The Milwaukee 5, before their appearance at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 24, 2024. They pled "Not Guilty" to all charges
Edward Said Warned of Anti-Palestine McCarthyism on Campus
April 23, 2024
As students rise up across the U.S., Said’s words resonate as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy and corruption of liberal institutions, writes Seraj Assi.
By Seraj Assi
Students across the United States are rising up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, bringing to memory the student movements of the 1960s.
From Columbia to Brown, from Yale to Harvard, students are staging sit-ins, hunger strikes, class walkouts, and interfaith prayers, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel and the complicity of their academic institutions in the ongoing genocide.
While some U.S. institutions are treading a delicate path, the Columbia University administration, led by President Minouche Shafik, has violently cracked down on its own students, summoning the NYPD to mass arrest over 100 students, and suspending others with a 15-minute notice.
Police destroyed solidarity encampments and student belongings, while charging arrested students with “trespassing” on the campus that they pay a whopping tuition of more than $60,000 a year to attend.
The Guardian reported that “hundreds of members of the teaching cohort at Columbia walked out in solidarity with the students who were arrested” while “students put protest tents back up in the middle of campus on Monday after they were torn down last week when more than 100 arrests were made.”
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, a Jewish-led U.S. group that organizes against Israel’s apartheid, declared: “Solidarity with these faculty members. Shame on establishment politicians and agitators who are smearing the anti-war protest at Columbia as anything other than what it is: a courageous stand for freedom and peace.”
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) whose 21-year-old daughter, Isra Hirsi, was suspended from Columbia’s Barnard College last week also noted the faculty walkout and “nationwide Gaza solidarity movement.”
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose daughter Isra Hirsi was suspended from Barnard College. (Wikimedia Commons)
In its attempt to appease far-right extremists in Congress, and to save Columbia from “being cursed by God,” as a Republican Congressman warned Shafik, Columbia has sided with genocide, thus undermining its own legacy of safeguarding free speech and peaceful protest on campus.
Beyond Columbia, there are ongoing demonstrations at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T), New York University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University, another Ivy League school, where at least 47 peaceful student protesters were arrested on Monday.
Weaponizing Antisemitism to Suppress Criticism
The violence has backfired, as hundreds of students continue to protest at Columbia, sparking a ripple effect across U.S. campuses, and defying what they see as a growing McCarthyism in U.S. academia.
Perceptively, Edward Said, the prominent Palestinian-American intellectual and distinguished Columbia professor, warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims.
An early target of this academic McCarthyism was Said, whose writings on post-colonialism, humanism, and literary criticism are required reading at Columbia and across the humanities.
Said was a victim of anti-Palestinian intimidation. His office at Columbia was occasionally raided and vandalized. He received several death threats and was smeared with terrorism accusations and spied on by students and AIPAC agents.
Shortly before his death, Said became the target of a vicious academic persecution, which he survived only because Columbia still had a shred of academic and moral integrity at the time.
In July 2000, Said went to South Lebanon on a solidarity tour, where he hurled a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse from the Lebanese border, which he described as “a symbolic gesture of joy” to mark the end of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
Columbia Then Refused to be Intimidated
A photographer caught the action, featuring Said with his arm reached far behind him, ready to throw. The Israel lobby, led by the Anti-Defamation League, called on Columbia to punish Said. Columbia refused to be intimidated, though it took the administration two months of eerie silence to respond.
In its five-page letter response, the university said that Said’s action was protected under the principles of academic freedom. Citing John Stuart Mill, as well as the Columbia Faculty Handbook, the letter asserted:
“There is nothing more fundamental to a university than the protection of the free discourse of individuals who should feel free to express their views without fear of the chilling effect of a politically dominant ideology. … This matter cuts to the heart of what are fundamental values at a great university.”
In defense of Said, the letter added:
“If we are to deny Professor Said the protection to write and speak freely, whose speech will next be suppressed and who will be the inquisitor who determines who should have a right to speak his or her mind without fear of retribution?”
The era of moral clarity and intellectual integrity in academia is now unraveling amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The tragic irony is that the current atmosphere of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism on U.S. campuses — led by an unlikely coalition of far-right Republicans, mainstream media, and liberal academic institutions — was foreseen by none other than Said himself. In his 1979 seminal essay, “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,” Said warned:
“The special, one might even call it the privileged, place in this discussion of the United States is impressive, for all sorts of reasons. In no other country, except Israel, is Zionism enshrined as an unquestioned good, and in no other country is there so strong a conjuncture of powerful institutions and interests—the press, the liberal intelligentsia, the military-industrial complex, the academic community, labor unions—for whom […] uncritical support of Israel and Zionism enhances their domestic as well as international standing.”
Presaging the rise of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism in academia, Said detected a state of academic repression and campus policing in which Palestinians “have no permission to narrative” and are increasingly demonized and silenced in the name of fighting antisemitism — a loaded concept that has become a shield for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Attack on Constitutional Rights
An image of the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, who lectured at Columbia University. (Creative Commons: CC BY SA 3.0)
Perceptively, Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims. He understood that systematically inflating antisemitism with the critique of Zionism was feeding anti-Palestinian sentiments in U.S. academic and media discourse. He further warned:
“One must admit, however, that all liberals and even most ‘radicals’ have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Any well-meaning person can thus oppose South African or American racism and at the same time tacitly support Zionist racial discrimination against non-Jews in Palestine.
The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media of malicious simplifications (e.g., Jews vs. Arabs), the cynical opportunism of various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political clichés (this is the role Gramsci assigned to traditional intellectuals, that of being ‘experts in legitimation’), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.”
The assault on Columbia students is an attack on constitutional rights and the basic tenets of democracy. It’s deplorable that one of the most violent crackdowns on student protests in U.S. history is coinciding with one of the worst genocides in recent memory, which has killed over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children, and displaced nearly two million others
One day after the mass arrests at Columbia, Palestinians in Gaza unearthed large mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, containing hundreds of civilians and patients who were massacred or buried alive by Israel.
More deplorable, from the young generation’s standpoint, is that this genocide is being backed and sustained by U.S. weapons and tax money, diplomatic support, and media and academic complicity.
The Biden administration is preparing to send its largest military aid package to Israel in U.S. history, with bipartisan blessing.
Despite massive protests, U.S. colleges have refused to divest from Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza, with few notable exceptions that include Rutgers and UC Davis. Several universities, including Columbia, have suspended the chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Said’s legacy reads today as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of U.S. liberal institutions, their moral corruption, and the hollowness of the very values that they profess to teach. This irony is best illustrated by a Columbia student’s protest sign, which read:
“Columbia, why require me to read Prof. Edward Said, if you don’t want me to use it?”
– Additional reporting by Common Dream’s Jessica Corbett
Seraj Assi is a Palestinian writer living in Washington D.C.
Palestinian civil defense discovered hundreds of bodies buried by Israeli forces in a mass grave inside the complex of Khan Younis' Nasser Medical Complex on Saturday.
Rescue workers said they had removed at least 200 bodies as of 12:00 pm local time on Sunday, and they estimated that at least another 200 remained,Middle East Eyereported.
"We found corpses without heads, bodies without skins, and some had their organs stolen," the director-general of the Government Media Office said in a statementsharedbyQuds News Network.
"Following the mass graves at Al-Shifa hospital, it looks likeIsraelis a voracious death machine turning hospitals inGazainto graveyards."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from Khan Younis on April 7. While they occupied the city, theystormedthe Nasser Medical Complex in February, arresting several doctors, damaging the structure with shelling, and rendering it unable to function as a hospital.
Al Jazeerareporter Hani Mahmoudsaidthe bodies found in the Nasser grave included children, young men, and older women. Rescues said that some of the bodies they found had been buried with their hands tied behind their backs, according toMiddle East Eye.
"Our teams continue their search and retrieval operations for the remaining martyrs in the coming days as there are still a significant number of them," Palestinian emergency services said in a statement shared withAl Jazeera.
The news came as the U.S. House of Representativesvotedon Saturday to send another $26 billion to Israel, including for military aid.
"These mass graves are obvious evidence of genocide and the most unthinkable war crimes. And yet, the House just signed off on $26 billion in weapons to fuel the genocidal Israeli military, while Israel threatens a full scale ground invasion to massacre Palestinians in Rafah," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rightssaidon social media.
This is not the first mass grave that has been discovered near a Gaza Strip hospital since Israel began its devastating bombardment and invasion following Hamas' deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel. When the IDF withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital earlier this month, Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabatreportedseeing hundreds of dead bodies outside the hospital, many that had had their hands and legs bound and their bodies run-over by bulldozers.Al Jazeerareported that several mass graves were found near al-Shifa.
"Following the mass graves at Al-Shifa hospital, it looks like Israel is a voracious death machine turning hospitals in Gaza into graveyards. Wake up world!" Palestinian politician and activist Hanan Ashrawiwroteon social media.
Muhammad Shehada, the communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, expressed shock that there was not more media coverage of the Nasser grave.
"I CANNOT find a single headline in any mainstream media about this!" Shehadawroteon social media. "Imagine it was Ukraine? or Israel?"
Over the weekend, the the Gaza Health Ministryreportedthat the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza surpassed 34,000, though this is likely an undercount since several people remain trapped beneath rubble.
World Central Kitchen deaths show why we need a ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war | Opinion
We learned to abhor the silence of those who stood idly by as our ancestors, relatives and loved ones were deported en masse to the Nazi death camps. For us to remain silent now would be hypocrisy.
Given the troubled history of U.S./Iranian relations spanning at least 60 years, the current threats of war expressed by both Israel and the United States are not surprising. As the influential Council of Foreign Relations put it in January:
A drone attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan killed three U.S. troops (Reuters) and wounded at least thirty-four, U.S. President Joe Biden said yesterday. He said that Iran-backed militant groups carried out the attack in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border.…CFR expert Steven A. Cook writes for the Wall Street Journal. “No one is going to lend a hand to the U.S. unless Washington takes decisive action to reform the [Palestinian Authority], confront Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ and isolate the region’s arsonists, notably Qatar and Turkey.”)
Subsequent to the ignoble history of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran’s dictatorship starting at the end of World War II, the U.S. militarization of the country , the overthrow of the progressive Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, the embarrassment of the hostage taking in 1979, funding Iraq in the brutal Gulf war of the 1980s, the United States has maintained hostility to Iran despite occasional signals from the latter of a desire to establish better relations. During the Obama administration in 2015 a nuclear treaty was negotiated between Iran, the US, and other countries, but it was abrogated by President Trump. U.S./Iranian hostilities have increased ever since, particularly since October 7, 2023.
U.S. policy has included an economic embargo, efforts to create region-wide opposition to the regime, expressions of support for a large (and justifiable) internal movement for democracy and secularization in the country, and encouragement, more or less, for growing Israeli threats against Iran.
Given this troubled history of U.S./Iranian relations spanning at least 60 years, the current threats of war expressed by both Israel and the United States are not surprising.
Palestinian Children's Day arrives this year as Israeli forces are killing, starving, detaining, and torturing Palestinian children at an unprecedented rate.
Today, we're announcing the updated #NoWayToTreatAChild campaign which aims to promote children's rights and push for accountability for the killing, detention, and torture of Palestinian children.
As Israel’s invasion of Gaza enters its sixth month, the impact on children has been devastating. It will only get worse in the coming months.
UN agencies report that an estimated 17,000 children have beenorphanedor separated from relatives, and 1 in 6 children under the age of 2 areacutely malnourished.
The health ministry in Gazareportedthat 23 children died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks.
Out of more than 31,000 killed in Gaza, over13,000are children.
President Joe Biden’sproposedtemporary port and the ongoing air drops are insufficient in the face of this unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
The UNhas warnedthat nearly 580,000 Palestinians – a quarter of Gaza’s population – are “one step away from famine.”
These statistics and scenes are all too familiar to me. As a Palestinian refugee, I lived with my family for a large part of my life in Lebanon. I experienced civil war and the Israeli invasion in 1982, the siege of Beirut, the subsequent occupation of Lebanon, as well as the 2006 invasion.
The experience of displacement and facing death daily is still stuck in my mind today. I have memories of jumping over scattered body parts after an Israeli air strike hit a building next to the house where we took refuge.
There are many such horrible recollections. The psychological trauma rooted in the ravages of war are scars that last a lifetime.
American aid, American weapons
Israelcontinuesto block humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza and has attacked Palestinians attempting to receive aid. The last day of February witnessed Israeli forces massacringover 100unarmed Palestinians queuing for flour and humanitarian assistance. Three days later, Israel killed nine Palestinian civilians in line for flour intwo separate attacks.
Having already vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions for a ceasefire, the Biden administrationalso blockeda statement that condemned the “Flour Bag Massacre” as it did not “have all the facts yet on the ground.”
Even though Washington has supplied the Israeli military with massive quantities of munitions and political cover, it has consistently claimed that it is unable to influence Israeli policy.
Instead, the Biden administration initiated air drops of “ready meals” into Rafah. The air drops are not even close to sufficient considering the dire needs of the population. And on 8 March the falling crateskilled fivepeople, including two children, when a parachute or parachutes failed to open. Biden’s proposed temporary port willtake weeksto complete as disease and malnourishment grow.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued its campaign and is employing American weapons. As the first aid drops were delivered, an Israelidrone striketargeted Palestinians huddling in tents outside Rafah’s Emirati hospital. At least 11 civilians, including children and two health workers, were killed and at least 50 people were injured.
For five months, the Biden administration has defended Israel’s actions and offered only muted criticism. Washington has remained steadfast in its support despite the overwhelming evidence of war crimes, including the determination by the International Court of Justice of a plausible genocide.
Spokespersons for the White House, State Department, and National Security Council as well as President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have repeatedly dismissed or diminished reports by the United Nations, journalists, and humanitarian organizations of the humanitarian catastrophe that has been live streamed to a horrified global audience.
Even after the “Flour Bag Massacre,” NSC spokesman John Kirbyinsistedthat Israel “has tried to help with the delivery of humanitarian assistance.” Yet a handful of Israeli protesters have been successful inblocking aidtrucks from entering Gaza. The carnival-like atmosphere of these Israeli protesters at the border crossing has occurred in full view of international media as well as the Israeli military.
Israel has also prevented basic necessities from entering Gaza and contributed to the pain and suffering of Palestinian children. CNN hasreportedthat maternity kits, sleeping bags and sanitary pads have been barred from entering Gaza. Anesthetics, oxygen cylinders and crutches are also on the list of rejected items.
Never forgive
The shocking scenes of children undergoing surgical procedures and amputations without anesthesia have now become routine as has theacronymWCNSF, for wounded child with no surviving family.
UN Secretary General António Guterres’6 Novemberwarning that Gaza was becoming “a graveyard for children” has been realized.
Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl who calledbegging for helpafter Israeli soldiers targeted the car in which she and her family were traveling, was killed after a long wait, along with the paramedics who went to save her.
Infants like 45-day-old Mahmoud Fattouh, who died due tosevere dehydrationand malnutrition, or Ahmad, a child whowas rescuedafter nine days under the rubble, a skeleton, or Taleen, 10, whorecognizedher mother’s body by the hair.
There are countless stories of mothers who held their children in their arms when they took their last breath. And this is only a partial telling. There are thousands of others whose stories we don’t know. With thousands still buried under the rubble, the stories of many of the dead children may never be told.
Yet the Biden administration repeatedly insists it needs more evidence before it can condemn or criticize Israel’s actions, standards it has not applied to the Palestinians, or UN agencies or the ICJ.
Children in Gaza have suffered the loss of their closest family members, in many cases their parents, siblings, grandparents and other relatives. Their homes and schools have been destroyed, their neighbors killed or displaced, their books and toys have been lost, their pets have been killed, their favorite park has been razed.
Under constant bombardment, the children are still grappling with the greatest challenges of siege, destruction, displacement and starvation. These challenges will only increase in the weeks and months after the fighting ends.
And the children will never forgive the silence and complicity of those who supported this horror.
I know, I was once them.
Dalal Yassine is a non-resident fellow with the Jerusalem Fund/Palestine Center in Washington, DC. The views in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center.
I am writing today after nearly half a year of devastation in Gaza, amid ongoing violations against the people remaining here, mass displacement and the inability to communicate due to deliberate actions by the occupation to keep us confined in a small space under Israel’s arrogant control.
During these difficult days, we have witnessed numerous heartbreaking scenes of hunger, thirst and humiliation.
The number of our martyrs so far amounts to over33,000, including nearly14,000 childrenand over 9,000 women, not to mention the civil defense members, ambulance personnel, aid workers, UN staff and older people.
Each of them is a heroic story in their own right, representing families that once lived in peace and hope. After 7 October, the occupation executed its threat, wiping out happiness, aspirations and dreams.
I remember my dear neighbor Ibrahim al-Madhoon, 90, who used to drink a cup of tea on his doorstep every morning, prepared for him by his wife Nisreen. I used to watch them, and their moments of happiness in their lives, and I would instinctively smile at the sight of them.
Their house was bombed and both were killed. The tea cup was shattered, and the laughter that used to fill the neighborhood disappeared.
I remember my friend Hazem, who used to feed the poor. He was very generous.
After 7 October, I found Hazem broken and miserable, sick due to the scarcity of food in Gaza and from drinking contaminated water, which now tastes like sewage. He was standing in line for humanitarian aid, a meal not big enough for one person, provided every three days for the entire family.
I remember when I was displaced from my house, which I now recall as palatial, on 13 October and went to Khan Younis in the south. The decision was forced on me by the Israeli forces of occupation, which said the south was a humanitarian zone where there would be no bombing.
From house to tent
On 26 October, however, my understanding of this new reality was clarified. I was in the street to buy some bread, when a whole square in the neighborhood I had fled to was bombed.
I almost became a casualty statistic. The explosion was so close and loud, I lost my hearing and speech for 20 minutes trying to comprehend what was happening.
I saw the residents of the neighborhood running and shouting words I could barely comprehend – “martyr,” “get the survivors out from under the rubble” – and then I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where to go, with just a few words running through my mind: There is no safe place.
Then I opened my news and social media platforms and found that many governments around the world are against this small territory full of stories, dreams and happiness in all its streets. I lost hope that this genocide would end soon and realized that this would become our lives – careening between anxiety and fear.
We were moved further south. The genocidal military forced us to the outskirts of Khan Younis, again describing it as a safe humanitarian area.
We had no choice but to follow the army’s instructions, hoping this would save us from death, but knowing full well there is nowhere safe in Gaza.
Here we transitioned from house to tent. Our new and current conditions do not provide the slightest protection, whether from the cold and rain or the rockets and shells.
The people of Gaza have become tent dwellers without privacy or security.
Ramadan questions
The month of Ramadan came with many questions.
Ramadan in a tent?
Ramadan in war?
Where will we find food?
How will we break our fast with something that compensates for fasting?
All these questions buzz in the minds of people who are hungry, sick, displaced and homeless.
I don’t hear laughter anywhere; I only hear crying for the martyrs and for Gaza City.
I see children crying in pain because of hunger, and women lining up for medicine and treatment for sick children with skin diseases, gastrointestinal infections and hepatitis. I saw a child in pain and his family unable to act due to the lack of any medicine or medical staff to treat the boy.
In Gaza, if you get sick, you either wait for God’s mercy or wait for your death. There is little to nothing by way of treatment.
If every Palestinian in Gaza spoke about their loss and suffering, the sea would run dry before these stories could end. We have lost our cities and towns with their memories, streets, schools, mosques and churches.
Both Gaza’s history and present are being wiped out.
In the heart of every challenge lies the seed of hope, and amid every tragedy, the strength of resilience and willpower shines through. Despite the many wounds, Gaza’s story remains full of tenderness, strength and hope.
Gaza has faced the harshest conditions, yet it has not surrendered or stopped dreaming of a better tomorrow. In each of its people lies the courage of struggle and a desire to build a future that restores Gaza’s charm and peace.
Resilience and determination to live with dignity burns within us. And with each passing day, hope is somehow maintained and the will to move forward grows despite all the hardships.
Mohammed Abu Shamala grew up in Khan Younis refugee camp, Gaza. His family is from Beit Daras, where villagers were forcibly displaced by Zionist militias in 1948.
Following international outcry at the targeting of World Central Kitchen aid workers, Israel said that it would “temporarily” allow aid into Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and killed a Palestinian man in Tulkarem.
Jeffrey Sachs summarizes the reality of the ongoing Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in two sentences:
"Israel depends on the continued flow of American munitions. If Biden wants to stop this he can stop it."
In a work entitled “Irish Famine 4,” Palestinian-AmericanjournalistandartistSam Husseini combined grass and paint to commemorate a bitter time in Irish history when starving people died with their mouths stained green because, according to historianChristine Kinealy, their last meal was grass. Shamefully, British occupiers profited fromexporting out of Irelandthe food crops so desperately needed. During a seven-year period beginning in 1845, one million Irish peoplediedfrom starvation and related diseases. It was adeliberate mass killing, employing one of the most horrific means of execution imaginable—an excruciating descent of weeks’ duration into despair, delirium, and bodily immobility while one’s attention, one’s character, is gradually reduced to little more than appetite and pain.
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Sam Husseini
Irish Famine 4, reproduced with permission of artist Sam Husseini
Now, in the occupied Gaza Strip, as weapons dealersbenefitfrom increasing military shipments to Israel, Palestinians have resorted to eating mixtures ofgrass and animal feed. The past five months of Israeli siege, bombing, and displacement have killedmore than31,000—mostly women and children—but a process of famine long underway is clearly about toexpand that number exponentially, particularly among children.
Human Rights Watchsaysthe Israeli government is starving civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza. Aiding and abetting this war crime, the United States has approved100 military salesto Israel over the past five months. U.S. bullets, bombs, and guns have helped keep crucially needed aid from reaching millions of Palestinians. The bombs haveburied or destroyedmuch of the food supplies which could have mitigated this horror, and they have forced vast populations to flee attacks and huddle in the city that is Israel’s latest target:Rafah. The United States continues providing the muscle behind a starvation genocide.
On March 11, eight U.S. Senatorssigneda letter to President Joe Biden insisting that ongoing weapons shipments violate U.S. lawsforbiddingmilitary aid to regimes that are obstructing U.S. humanitarian aid.
Twenty-five prominent humanitarian and human rights organizationsdelivereda letter to the President echoing the Senators’ message.
Even as Israel faces mounting pressure from world leaders to stop impeding humanitarian relief shipments, Israel turned back another aid truck, this time because it contained children’s medical kits.
Even as Israelfaces mounting pressurefrom world leaders to stop impeding humanitarian relief shipments, Israelturned backanother aid truck, this time because it contained children’s medical kits. These kits included scissors useful for applying bandages or cutting away clothing to reach shrapnel.
The Israelis forbade the scissors as a potential dual-use weapon. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to send guns and bombs to Israel.
Each day brings new reports of Palestinians,40 percent of themchildren, succumbing to disease and death because they are deprived of food, fuel, clean water, medicines, and shelter. Hellish conditions worsen as infectious contamination spreads from decomposing bodies and the chemical contaminants from thousands upon thousands of Israeli and Western-supplied bombs that have been dropped on Gaza.
In Northampton, Massachusetts, six activists are on the third day ofan occupationof the office of Representative Jim McGovern, demanding that he call on the President to immediately halt all weapons shipments to Israel and stop the United States fromvetoingUnited Nations cease-fire resolutions.
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photo courtesy of Leahy Fast for Palestine Committee
Occupiers in Representative Jim McGovern’s office in Massachusetts, March 14, 2024.
“These are desperate times,” says Peter Kakos, one of the occupiers. “We must call for immediate action, and nothing less.” He’s particularly mindful of17,000 Gazan childrenwho are estimated by UNICEF to be currently unaccompanied or separated from their parents.
We talk about the mental harm on children caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. A March 12, 2024,reportby Save the Children draws our attention to what five months of carnage, flight, starvation, and disease, on top of nearly seventeen years ofapartheid conditions, will have permanently done to the children of Gaza who survive the brutality now afflicting them.
During a recent visit to Amman, Jordan, I witnessed the anguish and frustration felt by many Palestinians there, denied any means of relieving the suffering of loved ones. They had this response to photos taken of U.S. aid drops: “Are you going to feed starving people so that they can then face genocide from the Israeli Army with a full stomach?” asked my host. “What’s the logic in that? The only humanitarian thing to drop would be to drop all support for Israel’s war on the people of Gaza.”
In May of this year, an Irish organization called AFRI (Action From Ireland)will holdan annual “famine walk” in an area of Ireland across which hundreds of desperate people trekked in cold and stormy weather in 1847 to beg mercy from those British officials designated to assess who would qualify for small portions of food or tickets to enter a workhouse.
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Miossec, CC BY-SA 3.0
"An Gorta Mór" mural on Whiterock Road (Ballymurphy - Baile Uí Mhurchú) , Belfast, Ireland, April 2007.
“The weather was terrible,”notesCounty Mayo’s official record of the time, “with wind and hail beating down upon them. When they arrived in Delphi the [Board of] Guardians refused them food or their tickets to the workhouse. Needless to say many of them perished on the return journey as fatigue and exhaustion from hunger took hold. Some of those that had energy to start the journey back to Louisburgh were swept into the lake by the heavy squalls.”
Each year, the organizers of AFRI’s famine walk focus on a place in the world where famine afflicts people today. “This year’s famine walk will focus on the unspeakable horrors being visited on the population of Gaza,” says AFRI’s coordinator, Joe Murray, “with ‘Irish’ President Biden forgetting his history and playing the part of a ‘Black and Tan’ in providing the means to obliterate an entire population.”
People in the United States ought to occupy the local offices of every elected official, denouncing all forms of violence and insisting on an immediate end to any support for Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.
It's heinous to ignore the plight of starving people as was done by the British relief officials in the spring of 1847. But it is even more cruel to bomb the people you are deliberately starving, forcing them to wonder if they will face a quick death or a long and tortuous one.
Yes, these are desperate times. People in the United States ought to occupy the local offices of every elected official, denouncing all forms of violence and insisting on an immediate end to any support for Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza. It’s time to acknowledge the futility of war and call for a collective home to be shared by Musims, Jews, Christians, Bahais, Druze, and many others in a secular democratic state encompassing Israel and Palestine. Similarly, our elected representatives should occupy the Oval Office until the President takes action.
US Has Secretly Sent Israel Over 100 Weapons Shipments In Last 150 Days
U.S. officials have secretly sent Israel over 100 shipments of weapons, amounting to thousands of bombs and arms, just since October 7, arresting new reporting finds as the Biden administration scrambles in public to contain a splintering of his Democratic base amid its support of Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
The Washington Postreported on Wednesday that members of Congress were informed of the sales, which were all separate, by U.S. officials in a recent classified meeting. This is far more weapons sales than previously made public by officials; before this, only two arms transfers to Israel were publicly reported, both having been approved by President Joe Biden invoking emergency powers to bypass Congress and both garnering strong opposition by pro-Palestine advocates.
The cache of weapons includes precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms (like firearms), and more, The Post reported. They have been sent as experts have repeatedly said that Israel is committing war crimes in its indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza, and despite U.S. laws prohibiting military assistance being sent to countries committing human rights violations.
To Stop the Cycle of Violence, the U.S. Must Quit Supporting Israel's Occupation
We condemn the attacks by Hamas deliberately targeting Israeli civilians for killing and kidnapping. And we condemn Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza, which is again killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians. We grieve for all the lives lost and for all those injured and traumatized.
The root of the current violence is the oppression and abuses suffered daily by Palestinian people as a whole under decades of cruel Israeli occupation and expansionism. Leading human rights groups -- from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to Israel’s B'Tselem -- have concluded that Israel’s occupation policies amount to a form of apartheid.
Until Israel’s military occupation is ended, these cycles of terror and war and trauma will repeat.
South Africa Urgently Appeals to ICJ on Gaza Famine
March 7, 2024
Describing the situation in Gaza as “now so terrifying as to be unspeakable,” Pretoria is asking the World Court to take further measures to stop Israel’s genocide.
South Africa presenting its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, Jan. 12, 2024. (ICJ, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
South Africa on Wednesday filed an urgent request with the International Court of Justice for the indication of additional provisional measures and the modification of the court’s order of 26 January 2024 and decision of 16 February 2024 in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), according to the ICJ in a March 6 press statement.
In its request, South Africa states that it is
“compelled to return to the Court in light of the new facts and changes in the situation in Gaza — particularly the situation of widespread starvation — brought about by the continuing egregious breaches of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide . . . by the State of Israel . . . and its ongoing manifest violations of the provisional measures indicated by this Court on 26 January 2024.”
It requests the court to indicate further provisional measures and/or to modify the provisional measures indicated in its order of 26 January 2024, pursuant to Article 41 of the Statute of the Court and Article 75, paragraphs 1 and 3, and Article 76, paragraph 1, of the Rules of Court, respectively, “in order urgently to ensure the safety and security of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, including over a million children.”
It urges the court to do so without holding a hearing, in light of the “extreme urgency of the situation.”
The situation in Gaza described by the ICJ as “perilous” on 16 February, “is now so terrifying as to be unspeakable… justifying — and indeed demanding — the indication of further provisional measures of protection,” argued South Africa.
South Africa’s has requested that the ICJ make the following additional provisional measures and modification to existing measures:
“All participants in the conflict must ensure that all fighting and hostilities come to an immediate halt, and that all hostages and detainees are released immediately.
“All Parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide must, forthwith, take all measures necessary to comply with all of their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
“All Parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide must, forthwith, refrain from any action, and in particular any armed action or support thereof, which might prejudice the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts, or any other rights in respect of whatever judgment the Court may render in the case, or which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.
“The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address famine and starvation and the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, by: (a) immediately suspending its military operations in Gaza; (b) lifting its blockade of Gaza; (c) rescinding all other existing measures and practices that directly or indirectly have the effect of obstructing the access of Palestinians in Gaza to humanitarian assistance and basic services; and (d) ensuring the provision of adequate and sufficient food, water, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, alongside medical assistance, including medical supplies and support.
“The State of Israel shall submit an open report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to all provisional measures ordered by the Court to date, within one month as from the date of this Order.”
“Palestinian children are starving to death as a direct result of the deliberate acts and omissions of Israel — in violation of the Genocide Convention and of the Court’s Order. This includes Israel’s deliberate attempts to cripple the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (‘UNRWA’), on whom the vast majority of besieged, displaced and starving Palestinian men, women, children and babies depend for their survival,” write South Africa.
WASHINGTON -Today, March 5, 2024, Demand Progress, Oxfam America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Win Without War, Common Defense, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and 23 partner organizations launched CeasefireAction.com, a grassroots action tool to apply urgent pressure on members of Congress to call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire. We see this as particularly timely given Israel is reportedly planning to launch a ground offensive in Rafah on March 10th, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. More than 1.4 million people are currently sheltering in Rafah, the last safe zone in Gaza.
Internal Afghanistan News Update
March 4, 2024
Asia/Pacific Team
Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network
This internal initiative will continue with the Asia/Pacific Team’s objective of raising peoples’ awareness of U.S. imperialism targeting Afghanistan, providing monthly round-ups of recent news pieces leading up to the publication of our public Afghanistan News Updates which will now come out on a quarterly basis. The next Afghanistan News Update #21 is due at the end of March 2024.
We hope this initiative will encourage more Solidarity Network member participation leading up to the publication of the Afghanistan News Update #21. Members are encouraged to constructively respond with any questions, comments, action items or news of their own, and to consider joining the Asia/Pacific Team which this work falls under.
New details on the U.S.-created “Afghan Fund” emerge in SIGAR report
In January, new details emerged about the U.S. control of Afghan sovereign funds through congressional testimony submitted by SIGAR (Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction). The testimony (link here) clarified several details about the “Afghan Fund”, a Swiss-based fund holding $3.5 billion of Afghan assets, or half of the $7 billion in assets held in the United States that were seized by US officials and withheld from Afghanistan’s sovereign control via an executive order.
According to the SIGAR testimony, “the Fund will not be used to provide humanitarian or development assistance.” Instead, the US’s “short-term goal in setting up the Fund is to ‘promote monetary and macroeconomic stability’; the long-term goal is for unused monies to be returned to DAB [Afghanistan Central Bank], to recapitalize the bank.” Note that the priority of “monetary and macroeconomic stability” is commonly used by neoliberal economists as policy preferences—often conditions for loans from the International Monetary Fund—for central banks shorn of democratic, sovereign control to ensure that sovereign assets are used only to facilitate trade and capital flows rather than serving nationally-determined development priorities.
Despite these goals, SIGAR found that as of September 2023, none of the Afghan Fund’s funds have been disbursed and there were no plans for future disbursements other than operational costs. Yet the SIGAR testimony was also hopeful that another $2 billion of Afghan assets frozen by European countries would eventually be deposited into the Afghan Fund, while the rest of the $3.5 billion seized in the U.S. could also go to the Afghan Fund depending on the outcome of lawsuits by families of victims of 9/11.
The US justifies its seizure of the assets primarily on the basis of the Taliban not doing enough to comply with U.S. security interests in Afghanistan, their “security obligations,” and secondarily on the basis of the Taliban not doing enough to protect women’s rights. Yet on the latter, a January 2024 report by UNDP indicated that Afghanistan’s sharp economic decline in the last two years, triggered in large part by the U.S.-led seizing of assets, has disproportionately hurt women and girls.
Afghanistan continues to face a major humanitarian crisis
The people of Afghanistan are still enduring severe health emergencies, with women's and children’s health being particularly impacted by the country’s compounding humanitarian crisis. However, such dire challenges in addressing people’s healthcare needs do not simply start with the Taliban’s de facto takeover in 2021, nor are they consequences of recent environmental catastrophes, according to a recent article in Peoples Dispatch. Rather, the ongoing health catastrophe stems directly from the U.S./NATO occupation of the country in which capitalist institutions pushed forth the NGO-ization of Afghanistan’s health system, at the expense of a robust public health sector. Further, around half a million Afghan refugees fleeing deportation from Pakistan have returned with nowhere to go and little means to make a living.
Just as Gaza’s medical infrastructure has been decimated by the zionist entity of Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign, Afghanistan’s health system continues to be strangled by the ongoing economic warfare waged by the U.S. and its Western allies.
The United Nations held its second meeting of Special Envoys and Special Representatives on Afghanistan in Doha Qatar
On February 18 and 19, the United Nations held its second meeting of Special Envoys and Special Representatives on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar. However, the conference's stated goals for international engagement and dialogue on women’s and girls’ rights were not met as the UN sidestepped Afghanistan’s sovereignty and failed to convene directly with the Afghan people, including the de facto authority of the Taliban.
Yue Xiaoyong–China's special envoy on Afghan affairs who attended the UN meeting– reiterated the need for direct dialogue while also calling on the U.S. to end its economic warfare against the Afghan people by unfreezing the country’s sovereign assets and lifting unilateral sanctions. By ignoring the calls of Afghans within Afghanistan, the UN continues to prove its allegiance to Western imperialism,just as it has done in Haiti as it continues to prop up imperialist interventions in violation of Haiti’s sovereignty.
New documentary shines light on trauma faced by ex-Guantanamo detainees, a disproportionate majority of whom were Afghan with one Afghan still illegally imprisoned today
In a new documentary titled “Return to Afghanistan: An ex-Guantanamo Detainee Confronts Trauma” by Al Jazeera, the founder of the international organization CAGE, Moazzam Begg, returns to Afghanistan for the first time since the U.S./NATO withdrawal. In Afghanistan, Begg advocates for the freedom of Muhammad Rahim, the last Afghan held in Guantanamo Bay. He also confronts the trauma he suffered at the hands of the U.S./NATO military forces.
The situation in Gaza grows worse by the day as Palestinians are starved and Israeli forces turn hospitals into morgues. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, tensions rise as Ramadan approaches.
29,410+ killed* and at least 69,465 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
576 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 36,500 when accounting for those presumed dead.
** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments
Palestinian child fatally shot by Israeli forces’ bullets in Qalqilya city, in the occupied West Bank according toWafa.
UNOCHA: 100 children among 394 Palestinians killed in occupied West Bank since October 7th.
UNOCHA: Israeli settlers carried out 573 recorded attacks against Palestinian people and their property since October 7th.
Israeli forces set up acheckpointexclusively to stop and search Palestinians at Damascus Gate, the entrance to the Muslim Quarter in the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem.
Ten Israeli captives were killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza,an Israeli reportsays.
UNOCHA: Israeli demolitions led to the displacement of 830 people, including 337 children, with 131 homes demolished since October 7th.
One killed and eight wounded in a shooting attack by three Palestinians near the Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank. Two gunmen were killed, one arrested.
US intelligence assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of UNRWA staff participated in October 7th attacks on Israel, according to theWall Street Journal.
Doctors Without Borders: Israel attacked “clearly marked” MSF shelter in Gaza, killing two family members of workers sheltering there.
Israeli Knesset votes strongly in favor of a measure rejecting unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by international actors.
UN official: Besieged Nasser Medical Complex has become a “place of death”, as Israeli forces continue to target medical facilities.
Breaking the Silence:‘looting has never been normalized in the way it has over the last four months. It’s never been done with such glee, knowing that the Israeli public and the world are watching”
Israel fires on MSF building in Rafah, killing two
The bombardment of Gaza has continued for the139th day and the Palestinian death toll is steadily increasing. Nowhere is safe for civilians in the besieged enclave as the Israeli military is attacking the area with wild abandon.
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Overnight on Wednesday, stretching into the early hours of Thursday morning, an intense bombing campaign took place across Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, reported Hani Mahmoud from Gaza forAl Jazeera.
“Overnight, we’re looking at attacks in the eastern part, the northern part, and even the western part where literally hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering,” Mahmoud said, describing the sounds of systematic home demolitions in the north.
“This is absolutely terrifying in a densely populated area. Right now, Rafah has been a center for Israeli attacks,”Al Jazeeracorrespondent Tareq Abu Azzoum added.
The Israeli military has also continued its attacks on Gaza City, where the militarydemandedall residents of the Zeitoun and Turkmen neighborhoods urgently move to al-Mawasi area in Rafah’s outskirts in the south of the Gaza Strip. To do so, they would have to travel more than 30km through ongoing attacks and bombed roads of the war zone.
Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli army, told the Palestinianson Xthat the evacuation order comes “for your safety”, despite there being no safe place in the war-torn and besieged enclave.
Israeli attacks on the supposed ‘safe areas’ have continued. On Wednesday, a shelter run by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) in al-Masawi was targeted by Israeli forces.
According to thestatement, an Israeli tank fired on the building, sheltering 64 MSF employees and family members, killing the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF worker. Nearby shelling prevented an ambulance from reaching the facility to assist the wounded for more than two hours.
Israeli forces had been “clearly informed of the precise location of this MSF shelter in al-Mawasi” and that the building was additionally identified with a large MSF flag, the organization added.
“These killings underscore the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is safe, that promises of safe areas are empty and deconfliction mechanisms unreliable,” said MSF general director Meinie Nicolai. “The amount of force being used in densely populated urban environments is staggering, and targeting a building knowing it is full of humanitarian workers and their families is unconscionable.”
Just a few hours after the evacuation order in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed journalist Ihab Nasrallah and his wife in Zeitoun. Their three children were also badly burned, reportedWafa, citing medical sources.
In Nuseirat, in central Gaza, air strikes on the home of the al-Daalis family killed 17 people and wounded dozens of others, who were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in neighboring Deir el-Balah, Wafa added.
Families across the Gaza Strip have continued to shelter in the ruins of schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) because they have nowhere else to go, the UN agency says in apost on X.
“Entire neighborhoods are gone without a trace. Military operations relentlessly continue. No place is safe.”
Hospitals are ‘a place of death’
Civilians across the besieged enclave areas are still unable to receive proper healthcare amid Israel’s ruthless offensive, which Palestinains say has turned hospitals into morgues.
In Khan Younis, the situation is especially difficult as the two leading hospitals, al Amal and Nasser, remain under military siege and many critically ill patients have been trapped inside the hospitals for weeks.
During an evacuation mission to Nasser Hospital, Jonathan Whittal, a senior humanitarian affairs officer with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), described “appalling” conditions, which have transformed “a place of healing” to “a place of death.”
“There are 150 patients in one of these buildings. They have no food and water, no electricity. There’s very few doctors and nurses that are remaining inside this hospital. The conditions are appalling,” Whittall said in avideo on X.
“There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation. This has become a place of death, not a place of healing.”
“This is a preventable tragedy that should not have happened.”
Medical workers have said they do not want to be evacuated but instead have called for the protection of medical facilities and for critical functions of the hospital to be restored so they can continue treating patients there.
“The last week has been miserable; it’s been a nightmare [for workers in the hospital under Israeli siege]. The things they’re seeing are traumatizing, and they’re asking for some sort of help. They’re asking, actually, not to be evacuated from the hospital but for the hospital to function. For the lights to be turned back on, for the medicine they need to treat the 150 patients that remain,” Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a US-based emergency physician who spent several weeks volunteering at Nasser Hospital in January,told Al Jazeera.
“I spoke to one of the last surgeons remaining there, who sent a message to a group of physicians here in the [United] States, and he asked us to advocate for the patients who are there. He told us, ‘I’m staring at patients, and they need my help, they need my care, and there’s nothing that I can do.'”
Similarly, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) iswarningof the dire situation at al-Amal Hospital “due to the ongoing siege and targeting by the Israeli occupation for the 30th consecutive day”.
The PRCS is, once again, calling on the international community to take immediate action to protect the hospital and “to lift the imposed siege before it is too late and the hospital is forced out of service.”
‘Gazans on the brink of death’
Israel’s ongoing blockade is still starving Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.
Israel is bringing over 2 million people in Gaza to the brink of death, especially the 400,000 living in the northern area of the besieged enclave, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Israel’s prevention of aid trucks from entering and its occasional targeting of the few allowed in is already resulting in the death of children, elderly, and patients due to hunger,” the ministry said in astatement.
“The sight of thousands of children holding empty pots and standing in long lines waiting for any meal or food rations dominates life in northern Gaza.”
Ismail al-Thawabteh, the head of Gaza’s government media office, says that residents of the northern Gaza Strip have been eating animal feed for three consecutive weeks, reportedAl Jazeera.
If the world fails to force Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged coastal enclave, a humanitarian catastrophe affecting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will take place, warned al-Thawabteh.
UNOCHA has said only four humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, far below the average of 47 trucks per day between February 9 and 15 and a steep decline compared with 133 trucks per day the week before. It is important to note that before October 7, about 500 humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip daily.
“Between January 1 and February 15, less than 20 percent of missions (15 out of 77) planned by humanitarian partners to deliver aid and undertake assessments in areas to the north of Wadi Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities fully or partially and 51 per cent were denied (39 out of 77),” OCHA said in astatement.
“Access of missions to support hospitals and facilities providing water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH) services were among those overwhelmingly denied” by Israel, OCHA added.
Hamas said in a statement on Telegram: “We call on the World Food Program and all UN agencies, including UNRWA, to put pressure on the occupying power, by announcing a return to work in the northern Gaza Strip in accordance with their international mandates to relieve our people from the dangerously increasing threat of famine, in compliance with their legal and humanitarian responsibilities,” reportedAl Jazeera.
UNRWA ‘still waiting’ for Israel to share evidence of claims against the agency
Meanwhile, UNRWA’s future is uncertain after Israel is leading a global campaign to defund the UN organization, which is the primary aid distributor in the Gaza Strip.
While several major donor nations, including the US, have frozen vital aid to the agency due to the allegations, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Monday that the agency isstill waitingfor Israel to share evidence of its claims.
A new report by US intelligence has assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of staff members at UNRWA participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel, theWall Street Journalreports, citing officials familiar with the findings.
The “low confidence” assessment indicates that the intelligence officials find Israel’s claims that a dozen UNRWA employees took part in the attacks plausible but can’t offer a more decisive confirmation as they lack independent evidence.
Similarly, the intelligence officials also weren’t able to verify Israel’s claims that a large number of UNRWA staff have links to Hamas. Israel has claimed that 10 percent of UNRWA’s 12,000 staff in Gaza have some kind of affiliation with the group.
Pressure mounts in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
On Thursday, at least one person was killed and eight wounded when three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at motorists near an Israeli checkpoint near occupied East Jerusalem,Israeli police said, adding that two gunmen were killed, and a third was arrested.
A police spokesperson said the gunmen were Palestinians but gave no further details, according toAl Jazeera.
In response to the attack, Israel’s National Security Ministry, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has called for an escalation in the collective punishment of Palestinians.
“The freedom of life of the citizens of Israel prevails over the freedom of movement of the residents of the PA! We need to place more and more barriers and close roads on the Authority’s roads,” he saidon X.
Similarly, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has demanded the approval of a plan to build thousands of new illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“The serious attack on Maale Adumim must have a decisive security response but also an answer from the settlements,” hewrote on X.
“I demand the prime minister approve the convening of the higher planning council and immediately approve plans for thousands of housing units in Maale Adumim and the entire region,” he said.
“Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our control across the entire country.”
United Nations resolutions repeatedly affirmed that Israel’s establishment of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity. Most states and international bodies have long recognized that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.
Hamas has said the attack was a “natural response to the [Israeli] occupation’s massacres and crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” as cited byAl Jazeera.
Tensions across occupied Palestine have been increasing amid Israel’s state-sanctioned violence against Palestinians.
The day before the attack, a Palestinian child was fatally shot in the heart by Israeli forces in Qalqilya in the northern occupied West Bank, according toWafa.
About 394 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, including 100 children, according toOCHA.
The UN agency added that since October 7, Israeli demolitions have led to the displacement of 830 people, including 337 children, with 131 homes, and Israeli settlers carried out 573 recorded attacks against Palestinian people and their property.
Israel has also been tightening security in East Jerusalem as Ramadan approaches. On Wednesday, journalist Hamdah Salhut reported that Israeli authorities set up a checkpoint for Palestinians at Damascus Gate, a central entry point for Palestinians trying to reach the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
“Palestinians at the gate told me this is “the reality of life under occupation,” Salhut said in asocial media post, expanding that Jewish Israelis bypass the security check.
US congressman: ‘Kill them all’
Republican US Congressman Andy Ogles sparked anger when he appeared to call for the mass killing of Palestinians when confronted by activists calling for a ceasefire.
A woman was telling Ogles about the footage of Palestinian children killed by Israel. He responded, “I think we should kill them all if that makes you feel better – everybody, Hamas.”
The comment has left Palestinian rights advocates questioning why the comment has not garnered a forceful rejection from mainstream politicians.
“Not a peep from Congressional leadership in response to this murderous statement and open support for genocide,” Jewish Voice for Peace Actionsaid on X.
The same politicians brushing aside his comment are the ones who criticized Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, in November over her criticism of Israel.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on every member of Congress to condemn Republican Congressman Andy Ogles for appearing to call for the mass murder of Palestinians.
CAIR Deputy Director Edward Mitchell said in astatement: “If a member of Congress had called for every Israeli child to be killed, the entire American political establishment would rightfully condemn such remarks and call for, at the least, censure.”
Israel bombarded Nasser Complex in Khan Younis, killing and injuring patients and those sheltering inside. Egyptian human rights group reports construction underway on detention zone ahead of a possible mass expulsion from Gaza into Sinai.
Editorial | Tammy Baldwin should join Bernie Sanders in questioning military aid to Israel
Cap Times editorial
Jan 31, 2024
In the face of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has left more than 25,000 people dead, displaced almost 2 million and destroyed much of the region’s civilian infrastructure, the outcry against the wrongheaded policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grows ever louder.
Last week, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, responding to South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide, adopted provisional measures that require Netanyahu’s government to take steps to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, to prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide against Palestinians, and to assure basic services and humanitarian assistance can get to Gazans.
“The World Court’s landmark decision puts Israel and its allies on notice that immediate action is needed to prevent genocide and further atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza,” explains Balkees Jarrah, the associate international justice director for Human Rights Watch. “Lives hang in the balance, and governments need to urgently use their leverage to ensure that the order is enforced. The scale and gravity of civilian suffeGaza driven by Israeli war crimes demands nothing less.
The Israeli government rejects the ICJ’s determination. So, too, does the Biden administration.
But the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem observes:
“The provisions of international humanitarian law require that every one of the bombed targets (in Gaza) be defined as a military objective that makes an ‘effective contribution’ to Hamas’ actions, and that its destruction offers Israel a ‘definite military advantage.’ Even if the thousands of targets Israel has struck meet these criteria, the law requires that the resulting harm to civilian life and property be proportionate. Yet there is no way to reconcile Israel’s strikes with these rules. Any claim to the contrary is not only legally flawed but morally unacceptable.”
B’Tselem, which monitors human rights issues in the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, is mindful of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli kibbutzim and a music festival that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and 250 others kidnapped. The group recognizes that Israel has a right to self-defense.
“However,” it explains, “the right to self-defense does not confer the right to employ unlimited, indiscriminate violence, nor does it allow parties to ignore the provisions of international humanitarian law and commit war crimes. Israel certainly cannot rely on this right to justify a policy that does away with any protection of civilians and assumes there are no bystanders in Gaza.”
The United States has similar responsibilities. “We must understand,” explains U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, “that Israel’s war against the Palestinian people has been significantly waged with U.S. bombs, artillery shells, and other forms of weaponry. And the results have been catastrophic.”
As Congress has been working to pass a supplemental funding bill that includes as much as $14 billion in unconditional military aid for the Netanyahu government, Sanders says, “Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding. The taxpayers of the United States must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.”
That’s a principled position. But, so far, it’s been a lonely one.
In mid-January, Sanders made a baseline request of the Senate. In the face of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, he asked his colleagues: “Do you support asking the State Department whether human rights violations may have occurred using U.S. equipment or assistance in this war?”
Only 10 senators — Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, and Democrats Laphonza Butler of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Mazie Hirano of Hawaii, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Peter Welch of Vermont — sided with Sanders.
Many constituents of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, were disappointed that she did not join them. We share their frustration.
Baldwin offered a thoughtful assessment of the crisis in late December, when she said, “The Netanyahu government’s indiscriminate bombing and military approach has led to unacceptable bloodshed in Gaza and does not appear to be moving us closer to our ultimate goals of removing Hamas from power and achieving a lasting peace in the region through a two-state solution.”
At the time, Baldwin called for the immediate resumption of a humanitarian cease-fire — agreed to by Israel and Hamas — in order to ensure the unconditional release of all hostages and full humanitarian access to Gaza. She also called for “adherence to international humanitarian law by all parties and the protection of all civilians and civilian sites.”
How does Baldwin reconcile her stated position with her failure to vote for the resolution that was proposed by Sanders? To us, it makes no sense to recognize that Israel has engaged in “indiscriminate bombing” that “has led to unacceptable bloodshed in Gaza,” and then refuse to support an effort to determine the extent to which Israel is relying on U.S. equipment in this war.
Further, we see no justification for approving additional U.S. military aid for Israel until a determination has been made regarding the role that U.S. weapons may be playing in increasing the death toll in Gaza.
We hold out little hope that U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, will ever do the right thing for the right reason. But we respect Baldwin enough to hope that she will give serious consideration to the arguments being made by Sanders and a growing number of her constituents.
Let’s Talk about Palestine
a UC Berkeley Teach-In Series
Islamophobia, Race, and the Racialization of Palestine
While rushing weapons to the Israeli government's assault on Gaza, the Biden administration embraces Israeli allegations about UNRWA without bothering to investigate them.
Please write an email or phone the WI Senate leaders-
Hello friends on staff of Senators LeMahieu and Kapenga -
I am writing today as the bloodshed continues in Israel and Palestine. The war needs to end.
Would you please allow Senate Joint Resolution 92 to move forward in the Wisconsin Legislature? The resolution is a sensible one, calling for an end to the mass murder that is war.
Over 10,000 children have been killed and half the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Bombing of civilians creates more terrorists than it kills.
November 21, 2023 - Introduced by SenatorLarson, cosponsored by RepresentativesHong,Madison,Clancy,Joers,Myers,Moore Omokunde, Shelton,StubbsandWichgers. Referred to Committee on Senate Organization.
1Relating to:a call for an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and in 2Gaza and the West Bank.
3Whereas, all human life is precious, and the targeting of civilians, no matter 4their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law; and
5Whereas, between October 7 and October 23, 2023, armed violence has claimed 6the lives of over 5,000 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis, including Americans, and 7wounded thousands more; and
8Whereas, this violence is an extension of a decades-long conflict stemming from 9failed policies inflicted on both Israelis and Palestinians; and
10Whereas, hundreds of thousands of lives are at imminent risk if a cease-fire is 11not achieved and humanitarian aid is not delivered without delay; and
12Whereas, this conflict is perpetuating a dangerous and costly lack of access to 13basic housing needs, compounding this health and humanitarian crisis; and
14Whereas, the federal government holds immense diplomatic power to save 15Israeli and Palestinian lives; now, therefore, be it
1Resolved by the senate, the assembly concurring, That the Wisconsin 2Legislature urges support for facilitating de-escalation and calling for a cease-fire 3to urgently end the current violence in Israel and in Gaza and the West Bank; and, 4be it further
5Resolved, That the Wisconsin Legislature urges support for an immediate 6release of all hostages and cessation of hostilities toward civilians by all parties in 7this war; and, be it further
8Resolved, That the Wisconsin Legislature urges support for promptly sending 9and facilitating the entry of humanitarian assistance including food, water, and 10medical supplies into Gaza; and, be it further
11Resolved, That the Wisconsin Legislature urges the end of the long-time 12occupation of Palestinian territories in order to ensure safety and 13self-determination for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
BY JOSHUA FRANK - JANUARY 12, 2024 -Tom’s Dispatch
On a picturesque beach in central Gaza, a mile north of the now-flattened Al-Shati refugee camp, long black pipes snake through hills of white sand before disappearing underground. An image released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows dozens of soldiers laying pipelines and what appear to be mobile pumping stations that are to take water from the Mediterranean Sea and hose it into underground tunnels. The plan, according to various reports, is to flood the vast network of underground shafts and tunnels Hamas has reportedly built and used to carry out its operations.
“I won’t talk about specifics, but they include explosives to destroy and other means to prevent Hamas operatives from using the tunnels to harm our soldiers,” said IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi. “[Any] means which give us an advantage over the enemy that [uses the tunnels], deprives it of this asset, is a means that we are evaluating using. This is a good idea…”
While Israel is already test-running its flood strategy, it’s not the first time Hamas’s tunnels have been subjected to sabotage by seawater. In 2013, neighboring Egypt began flooding Hamas-controlled tunnels that were allegedly being used to smuggle goods between the country’s Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. For more than two years, water from the Mediterranean was flushed into the tunnel system, wreaking havoc on Gaza’s environment. Groundwater supplies were quickly polluted with salt brine and, as a result, the dirt became saturated and unstable, causing the ground to collapse and killing numerous people. Once fertile agricultural fields were transformed into salinated pits of mud, and clean drinking water, already in short supply in Gaza, was further degraded.
Israel’s current strategy to drown Hamas’s tunnels will no doubt cause similar, irreparable damage. “It is important to keep in mind,” warns Juliane Schillinger, a researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, “that we are not just talking about water with a high salt content here — seawater along the Mediterranean coast is also polluted with untreated wastewater, which is continuously discharged into the Mediterranean from Gaza’s dysfunctional sewage system.”
This, of course, appears to be part of a broader Israeli objective — not just to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities but to further degrade and destroy Gaza’s imperiled aquifers (already polluted with sewage that’s leaked from dilapidated pipes). Israeli officials have openly admitted their goal is to ensure that Gaza will be an unlivable place once they end their merciless military campaign.
“We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said shortly after the Hamas attack of October 7th. “We will eliminate everything — they will regret it.”
And Israel is now keeping its promise.
As if its indiscriminate bombing, which has already damaged or destroyed up to 70% of all homes in Gaza, weren’t enough, filling those tunnels with polluted water will ensure that some of the remaining residential buildings will suffer structural problems, too. And if the ground is weak and insecure, Palestinians will have trouble rebuilding.
Flooding tunnels with polluted groundwater “will cause an accumulation of salt and the collapse of the soil, leading to the demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes in the densely populated strip,” says Abdel-Rahman al-Tamimi, director of the Palestinian Hydrologists Group, the largest NGO monitoring pollution in the Palestinian territories. His conclusion couldn’t be more stunning: “The Gaza Strip will become a depopulated area, and it will take about 100 years to get rid of the environmental effects of this war.”
In other words, as al-Tamimi points out, Israel is now “killing the environment.” And in many ways, it all started with the destruction of Palestine’s lush olive groves.
Olives No More
During an average year, Gaza once produced more than 5,000 tons of olive oil from more than 40,000 trees. The fall harvest in October and November was long a celebratory season for thousands of Palestinians. Families and friends sang, shared meals, and gathered in the groves to celebrate under ancient trees, which symbolized “peace, hope, and sustenance.” It was an important tradition, a deep connection both to the land and to a vital economic resource. Last year, olive crops accounted for more than 10% of the Gazan economy, a total of $30 million.
Of course, since October 7th, harvesting has ceased. Israel’s scorched earth tactics have instead ensured the destruction of countless olive groves. Satellite images released in early December affirm that 22% of Gaza’s agricultural land, including countless olive orchards, has been completely destroyed.
“We are heartbroken over our crops, which we cannot reach,” explains Ahmed Qudeih, a farmer from Khuza, a town in the Southern Gaza Strip. “We can’t irrigate or observe our land or take care of it. After every devastating war, we pay thousands of shekels to ensure the quality of our crops and to make our soil suitable again for agriculture.”
Israel’s relentless military thrashing of Gaza has taken an unfathomable toll on human life (more than 22,000 dead, including significant numbers of women and children, and thousands more bodies believed to be buried under the rubble and so uncountable). And consider this latest round of horror just a particularly grim continuation of a seven decade-long campaign to eviscerate the Palestinian cultural heritage. Since 1967, Israel has uprooted more than 800,000 native Palestinian olive trees, sometimes to make way for new illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank; in other instances, out of alleged security concerns, or from pure, visceral Zionist rage.
Wild groves of olive trees have been harvested by inhabitants of the region for thousands of years, dating back to the Chalcolithic period in the Levant (4,300-3,300 BCE), and the razing of such groves has had calamitous environmental consequences. “[The] removal of trees is directly linked to irreversible climate change, soil erosion, and a reduction in crops,” according to a 2023 Yale Review of International Studiesreport. “The perennial, woody bark acts as a carbon sink … [an] olive tree absorbs 11 kg of CO2 per liter of olive oil produced.”
Besides providing a harvestable crop and cultural value, olive groves are vital to Palestine’s ecosystem. Numerous bird species, including the Eurasian Jay, Green Finch, Hooded Crow, Masked Shrike, Palestine Sunbird, and Sardinian Warbler rely on the biodiversity provided by Palestine’s wild trees, six species of which are often found in native olive groves: the Aleppo pine, almond, olive, Palestine buckhorn, piny hawthorne, and fig.
As Simon Awad and Omar Attum wrote in a 2017 issue of the Jordan Journal of Natural History:
“[Olive] groves in Palestine could be considered cultural landscapes or be designated as globally important agricultural systems because of the combination of their biodiversity, cultural, and economic values. The biodiversity value of historic olive groves has been recognized in other parts of the Mediterranean, with some proposing these areas should receive protection because they are habitat used by some rare and threatened species and are important in maintaining regional biodiversity.”
An ancient, native olive tree should be considered a testament to the very existence of Palestinians and their struggle for freedom. With its thick spiraling trunk, the olive tree stands as a cautionary tale to Israel, not because of the fruit it bears, but because of the stories its roots hold of a scarred landscape and a battered people that have been callously and relentlessly besieged for more than 75 years.
White Phosphorus and Bombs, Bombs, and More Bombs
While contaminating aquifers and uprooting olive groves, Israel is now also poisoning Gaza from above. Numerous videos analyzed by Amnesty International and confirmed by the Washington Post display footage of flares and plumes of white phosphorus raining down on densely populated urban areas. First used on World War I battlefields to provide cover for troop movements, white phosphorus is known to be toxic and dangerous to human health. Dropping it on urban environments is now considered illegal under international law, and Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. “Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” says Lama Fakih, director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
While white phosphorus is highly toxic to humans, significant concentrations of it also have deleterious effects on plants and animals. It can disrupt soil composition, making it too acidic to grow crops. And that’s just one part of the mountain of munitions Israel has fired at Gaza over the past three months. The war (if you can call such an asymmetrical assault a “war”) has been the deadliest and most destructive in recent memory, by some estimates at least as bad as the Allied bombing of Germany during World War II, which annihilated 60 German cities and killed an estimated half-million people.
Like the Allied forces of World War II, Israel is killing indiscriminately. Of the 29,000 air-to-surface munitions fired, 40% have been unguided bombs dropped on crowded residential areas. The U.N. estimates that, as of late December, 70% of all schools in Gaza, many of which served as shelters for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s onslaught, had been severely damaged. Hundreds of mosques and churches have also been struck and 70% of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been hit and are no longer functioning.
A War That Exceeds All Predictions
“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” claims Robert Pape, a historian at the University of Chicago. “It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.”
It’s still difficult to grasp the toll being inflicted, day by day, week by week, not just on Gaza’s infrastructure and civilian life but on its environment as well. Each building that explodes leaves a lingering cloud of toxic dust and climate-warming vapors. “In conflict-affected areas, the detonation of explosives can release significant amounts of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter,” says Dr. Erum Zahir, a chemistry professor at the University of Karachi.
Dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers on 9/11 ravaged first responders. A 2020 study found that rescuers were “41 percent more likely to develop leukemia than other individuals.” Some 10,000 New Yorkers suffered short-term health ailments following the attack, and it took a year for air quality in Lower Manhattan to return to pre-9/11 levels.
While it’s impossible to analyze all of the impacts of Israel’s nonstop bombing, it’s safe to assume that the ongoing leveling of Gaza will have far worse effects than 9/11 had on New York City. Nasreen Tamimi, head of the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority, believes that an environmental assessment of Gaza now would “exceed all predictions.”
Central to the dilemma that faced Palestinians in Gaza, even before October 7th, was access to clean drinking water and it’s only been horrifically exacerbated by Israel’s nonstop bombardment. A 2019 report by UNICEF noted that “96 percent of water from Gaza’s sole aquifer is unfit for human consumption.”
Intermittent electricity, a direct result of Israel’s blockade, has also damaged Gaza’s sanitation facilities, leading to increased groundwater contamination, which has, in turn, led to various infections and massive outbreaks of preventable waterborne diseases. According to HRW, Israel is using a lack of food and drinking water as a tool of warfare, which many international observers argue is a form of collective punishment — a war crime of the first order. Israeli forces have intentionally destroyed farmland and bombed water and sanitation facilities in what certainly seems like an effort to make Gaza all too literally unlivable.
“I have to walk three kilometers to get one gallon [of water],” 30-year-old Marwan told HRW. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Gazans, Marwan fled to the south with his pregnant wife and two children in early November. “And there is no food. If we are able to find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well.”
In the south of Gaza, near the overcrowded city of Khan Younis, raw sewage flows through the streets as sanitation services have ceased operation. In the southern town of Rafah, where so many Gazans have fled, conditions are beyond dire. Makeshift U.N. hospitals are overwhelmed, food and water are in short supply, and starvation is significantly on the rise. In late December, the World Health Organization (WHO) documented more than 100,000 cases of diarrhea and 150,000 respiratory infections in a Gazan population of about 2.3 million. And those numbers are likely massive undercounts and will undoubtedly increase as Israel’s offensive drags on, having already displaced 1.9 million people, or more than 85% of the population, half of whom are now facing starvation, according to the U.N.
“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” reports Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch.
Rarely, if ever, have the perpetrators of mass murder (reportedly now afraid of South Africa’s filing at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing Israel of genocide) so plainly laid out their cruel intentions. As Israeli President Isaac Herzog put it in a callous attempt to justify the atrocities now being faced by Palestinian civilians, “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible [for October 7th]. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime.”
The violence inflicted on Palestinians by an Israel backed so strikingly by President Biden and his foreign policy team is unlike anything we had previously witnessed in more or less real-time in the news and on social media. Gaza, its people, and the lands that have sustained them for centuries are being desecrated and transformed into an all too unlivable hellscape, the impact of which will be felt — it’s a guarantee — for generations to come.
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, January 26, 2024
The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza — cease committing and inciting genocidal acts — and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed.
This was a make or break moment for international law, or rather a break or make-a-first-step moment. There is hope for the idea and reality of international law, but this is only a beginning.
The president of the International Court of Justice, who read the ruling, is Judge Joan Donoghue, former top legal advisor under Hillary Clinton at the U.S. State Department during the Obama Administration. She previously was the lawyer for the United States in its unsuccessful defense before the ICJ against charges by Nicaragua of minining its harbor.
The court voted for portions of this decision by 15-2 and 16-1. The “No” votes came from Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda and Ad Hoc Judge Aharon Barak of Israel.
The case presented by South Africa was overwhelming (read itorwatch a key part of it), and Israel’s defense paper-thin. And the case just grew more overwhelming during the bizarre delay (yes, courts are slow, but this genocide is swift).
People all over the world built the pressure to move South Africa to act and other nations to add their support. Over 1,500 organizations signed astatement. Individuals signed apetitionby CODEPINK, and sent almost 500,000 emails to key governments’ United Nations consulates throughWorld BEYOND WarandRootsAction.org. Click those links because more emails are needed now. While several nations have made public statements in support of South Africa’s case, we need them to file papers officially with the International Court of Justice. To reach out to additional national governments,go here.
Germanyhas backedIsrael’s defense against the charge of genocide, which has been denounced by Namibia, victimn of a German genocide. Prominent Jewshave denouncedGermany’s shameful action.
Mass demonstrations in the streets of the world have continued in support of peace and justice, and toa far greater extentthan major media outlets have reported.
Prior to today’s ruling from the International Court of Justice, the U.S. government pointedlyrefused to saywhether it would comply with ruling, despite insisting that other nations comply with rulings by the ICJ.
Hamassaid thatit would cease fire if Israel does, and release all prisoners if Israel does
Germany, to its credit, reportedlysaid thatit would comply.
Arming a genocide is complicity in genocide. While Israel gets most of its weapons from the United State, other weaponrycomes fromGermany, Italy, the UK, and Canada — at least some of which nations also provide parts to U.S. weaponsmakers that provide weapons to Israel. Italian oppositiondemandedan end to it. And then the Foreign MinisterclaimedItaly had stopped shipments on Oct 7. Meanwhile, Canada is comingunder pressureto cease shipments and prevarications. In Canada, Members of Parliament are among over 250 peoplehunger strikingfor an arms embargo on Israel.
People in the United States can tell Congress to stop arming Israelhereorhere.
President Joe Biden already faces a lawsuit for aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza. In November 2023, Palestinian human rights organizations, along with Gaza- and U.S.-based Palestinians,filed suitin a U.S. federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Biden Administration for failing to prevent genocide, and for aiding and abetting genocide. Theplaintiffs seekan order to end U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel. A hearing to address the government’s motion to dismiss will be held at 9 a.m. PT / 12 noon ET today, Friday.The hearing will be webstreamed to the public. You are encouraged to tune in and witness the U.S. government’s attempts at avoiding accountability and justify its support for the genocide that is happening in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) just ruled against Israel and determined that South Africa successfully argued that Israel’s conduct plausibly could constitute genocide. The Court imposes several injunctions against Israel and reminds Israel that its rulings are binding, according to international law.
In its order,the court fell short of South Africa's request for a ceasefire, but this ruling, however, is overwhelmingly in favor of South Africa's case and will likely increase international pressure for a ceasefire as a result.
AMERICANS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE
ICJ LANDMARK DECISION UNDERSCORES THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE HARSH REALITIES SURROUNDING ISRAEL’S PERSISTENT GENOCIDAL ATTACKS ON GAZA
Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue provisional measures against Israel for its genocidal acts in Gaza. The case was brought by South Africa on December 29th, 2023, accusing Israel of “genocidal acts.”
This morning, the ICJ issued adecisive rebukeof Israel’s brutal aggression in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of whom are civilians. Although it’s an interim judgment, the ICJ ruled that Israel must take immediate measures to halt all genocidal acts in Gaza.
The court’s president, Judge Joan Donoghue, stated that Israel must abide by the Genocide Convention and “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope” of the convention, in particular, the killing of civilians, inflicting bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. 15 out of the 17 judges agreed that the numerous and highly inflammatory comments made by some senior Israeli officials, which could be interpreted as an endorsement of deliberately harming civilians, gave “plausibility” to South Africa’s allegations that Israel has genocidal intent against Palestinians in Gaza.
In summary, the provisional measures demand the following of Israel:
Israel must halt attacks on Palestinians
Halt incitement against Palestinians as a group
Ensure Humanitarian aid
Preserve evidence
Submit a response to the court within one month
The ICJ’s omission of the term “ceasefire” in its ruling is not a loophole but a glaring call to action. The prescribed provisional measures are unequivocally contingent upon a cessation of hostilities/ceasefire. Israel’s ruthless assault on Palestinian civilian life has resulted in the tragic murder of hundreds of thousands of lives within a mere 112 days, obliterating dozens of family bloodlines. The indiscriminate attacks persist unabated, inflicting untold suffering on the densely populated Gaza Strip, with no foreseeable conclusion in sight.
This ICJ victory is a critical milestone; its importance should not be undermined, and we believe it will eventually arrive at the proper conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It exposes the complicit position of the Biden administration, which chose from day one to act as an accomplice of Israel and defend its crimes by considering the case filed by South Africa “meritless.“
AJP calls on the Biden administration to end its complicity in the war crimes Israel is committing, halt all weapons transfer to it, and immediately call for, facilitate, and impose an indefinite ceasefire on Israel. We must have a permanent end to all attacks on Palestinian life, including an end to the siege on Gaza and the occupation of Palestine.
We Charge Genocide: International Day of Action for Permanent Ceasefire Now!
Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel Van Der Hout LLP against the President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense on behalf of two Palestinian human rights organizations and eight Palestinians in the U.S. and Palestine. The case challenges the U.S. government's failure to prevent and complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people and asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law. The hearing on the preliminary injunction motion and the government’s motion to dismiss the case took place on Friday, January 26,2024.
Inter-Faith Leaders of Greater Milwaukee Issue Call:
We, faith leaders in Milwaukee, as signed, have joined together to bring a unified moral voice to the growing catastrophe in Gaza and increasing violence throughout Israel and Palestine. We are religious and lay leaders of the three Abrahamic Religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as well as Eastern religious traditions.
We represent the voices of many who grieve the death of innocent human beings in a land called holy by our traditions. We mourn the decades of occupation and oppression, of terrorism and military violence.
We are anguished by the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and by the brutal and ongoing death and destruction brought upon the people of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel. Time and again it has been demonstrated that there will be no military solution to this conflict.
As Jews, as rabbis, as Christians, pastors and priests, as Muslims, imams and lay leaders, as Buddhists, as human beings—we are pleading with our communities to rise through despair and grief to save valuable human lives on all sides of this conflict and to call for a complete ceasefire now, brokered by the United Nations.
We call for an end to all bombing and ground war..
We call for an end of settler and IDF violence in the Occupied West Bank.
We call for the release of all Israeli and international hostages being held in Gaza and all civilian Palestinians being held by Israel.
We call for the immediate flow of aid to Gaza for humanitarian relief.
We call for immediate engagement by the international community toward a just and lasting peace in Israel-Palestine.
As Americans, we call upon our leaders to stop supporting and enabling this conflict. Ceasefire is the only way to prevent more death and destruction. We call on Senator Tammy Baldwin, Senator Ron Johnson, and Representative Gwen Moore to reflect on the suffering of the victims of war, especially the children, and to change their stance from a temporary “pause” on the killings to a “ceasefire.”
We make a stand for a sustainable peace, now. This peace must include a fight against rising antisemitism and Islamophobia in our communities.
We invite all people of faith, as well as others of good conscience, to join us in this call for a complete ceasefire NOW!
Contact: Rev. Dr. Lisa Bates-Froiland [email protected] 414-238-1043
PEACE ACTION WI FOR GAZA!
Peace Action WI Steering Committee at Gwen Moore's Office, Jan 16, 2024.
Peace Action WI to U S representative Gwen Moore
Dear Congresswoman Gwen Moore:
We have reviewed your January 5 statement on the ongoing Israel-Hamas War (a.k.a. Israeliwar on Gaza). We appreciate the opportunity to give our response.
Specifically, your statement says “the Biden administration needs to prioritize moving towards a humanitarian ceasefire, the safe return of all remaining hostages, the secure delivery of humanitarian aid, etc.”
This is insufficient.Gaza is the victim of an ongoing genocide as South Africa has shown in their case in the International Court of Justice. Other genocide and holocaust experts have come to the same conclusion. This horrific crime against the people in Gaza demands an IMMEDIATE AND PERMANENT CEASEFIRE and an IMMEDIATE AND PERMANENT END TO MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.Not another nickel for Israel’s crimes. Our government needs to MASSIVELY AND IMMEDIATELY INCREASE HUMANITARIAN AID to the people of Gaza.
The United States government can and should end this genocide immediately.Congress needs to demand, not ask, that the Biden administration demand, not ask, that Israel stops this genocide.The Biden administration needs to use all mechanisms at its disposal to force Israel to end this genocide.
Members of Congress who have not called for an immediate ceasefire are complicit in this genocide. Members of Congress who vote for more military aid to Israel are accomplices to this genocide.
We are giving you a transcript of the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. We are asking you to read it. We are also giving you a copy of the names of 2800 children who were killed in Gaza in just 3 weeks from Oct 7 to October 27. This list does not include the children buried under the rubble or who have died of hunger and disease.
Congresswoman Moore, you have spent your career working for legislation to protect women and children. Therefore, we urge you to read these documents in the hope they will inspire you to take bold action to stop the genocide in Gaza. We urge you to write a letter to President Biden that demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to all military aid to Israel and a massive and immediate increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza.
We also urge you to cooperate with your colleagues in co-sponsoring H.R.3103, Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act.
Finally, we urge you to call a town hall meeting so you can dialogue with your constituents on the steps you are taking to end this genocide, stop the child casualties and stop the spread of this war.
On behalf of the Peace Action of Wisconsin Steering Committee
Contact: 414-269-9525
Secretary-General Antonio Guitierrez
New York, 15 January 2024
Good afternoon.
More than 100 days have passed since the horrific 7 October attacks by Hamas that claimed the lives of more than one thousand Israelis and others, and resulted in the brutal seizing of hostages.
Every day I think of the anguish of the families I met.
I once again demand the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. In the interim, they must be treated humanely and allowed to receive visits and assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The accounts of sexual violence committed by Hamas and others on October 7th must be rigorously investigated and prosecuted.
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets towards civilian targets.
At the same time, the onslaught on Gaza by Israeli forces over these 100 days has unleashed wholesale destruction and levels of civilian killings at a rate that is unprecedented during my years as Secretary-General.
The vast majority of those killed are women and children.
Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond words. Nowhere and no one is safe.
Traumatized people are being pushed into increasingly limited areas in the south that are becoming intolerably and dangerously congested.
While there have been some steps to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, life-saving relief is not getting to people who have endured months of relentless assault at anywhere near the scale needed.
The long shadow of starvation is stalking the people of Gaza – along with disease, malnutrition and other health threats.
I am deeply troubled by the clear violation of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing.
Last week, Under-Secretary-General Sigrid Kaag began her work as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza – in line with Security Council Resolution 2720.
I ask all states and parties to the conflict for their full cooperation, as she also works with members of the Security Council and regional actors to deliver on the mandate set in the resolution.
An effective aid operation in Gaza – or anywhere else -- requires certain basics.
It requires security.
It requires an environment where staff can work in safety.
It requires the necessary logistics and the resumption of commercial activity.
The obstacles to aid are clear – and they have been identified not only by the UN, but by officials from around the globe who have seen the situation for themselves.
First, the United Nations and our partners cannot effectively deliver humanitarian aid while Gaza is under such heavy, widespread and unrelenting bombardment.
This endangers the lives of those who receive aid – and those who deliver it.
The vast majority of our Palestinian staff in Gaza have been forced to flee their homes.
Since October 7th, 152 UN staff members have been killed in Gaza – the largest single loss of life in the history of our organization -- a heart-wrenching figure and a source of deep sorrow.
Still, aid workers, under enormous pressure and with no safety guarantees, are doing their best to deliver inside Gaza.
We continue to call for rapid, safe, unhindered, expanded and sustained humanitarian access into and across Gaza.
Second, the aid operation faces significant hurdles at the Gaza border.
Vital materials – including life-saving medical equipment and parts which are critical for the repair of water facilities and infrastructure – have been rejected with little or no explanation, disrupting the flow of critical supplies and the resumption of basic services.
And when one item is denied, the time-consuming approval process starts again from scratch for the entire cargo.
Third, the aid operation faces major impediments to distribution within Gaza.
This includes repeated denials of access to the north, where hundreds of thousands of people remain.
Since the start of the year, just 7 of 29 missions to deliver aid to the north have been able to proceed.
Large stretches of agreed routes cannot be used due to heavy fighting and debris, with unexploded ordnance also threatening convoys.
Humanitarian notification systems to maximize the safety of aid operations are not being respected.
In addition, frequent telecommunications blackouts means humanitarian workers cannot seek out the safest roads, coordinate aid distribution or track the movements of displaced people who need assistance.
We are seeking to ramp up the response – but we need basic conditions in place.
The parties must respect international humanitarian law –respect and protect civilians, and ensure their essential needs are met.
And there must be an immediate and massive increase in the commercial supply of essential goods.
The UN and humanitarian partners cannot alone provide basic necessities that should also be available in markets to the entire population.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media,
Meanwhile, the cauldron of tensions in the occupied West Bank is boiling over with heightened violence compounding an already dire fiscal crisis for the Palestinian Authority.
Tensions are also sky-high in the Red Sea and beyond – and may soon be impossible to contain.
I have serious concerns about daily exchanges of fire across the Blue Line.
This risks triggering a broader escalation between Israel and Lebanon and profoundly affecting regional stability.
Tens of thousands of people in northern Israel and southern Lebanon have been displaced by the fighting and humanitarian access in Lebanon continues to be constrained.
I am profoundly worried by what is unfolding.
It is my duty to convey this simple and direct message to all sides:
Stop playing with fire across the Blue Line, de-escalate, and bring hostilities to an end in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1701.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media,
I have outlined concerns about a wide range of issues: the unprecedented level of civilian casualties and catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza; the fate of the hostages; the tensions that are spilling [over] across the region.
There is one solution to help address all these issues.
We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
To ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed.
To facilitate the release of the hostages.
To tamp down the flames of wider war because the longer the conflict in Gaza continues, the greater the risk of escalation and miscalculation.
We cannot see in Lebanon what we are seeing in Gaza.
And we cannot allow what has been happening in Gaza to continue.
United States- The newly-formed International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) issued a sign-on letter* on January 3, 2024 that garnered over 800 organizational endorsements from around the world in less than one week. In addition to the initiating organizations notedhere, signing organizations represent broad social movements, including World March of Women and the International People’s Assembly, Palestinian-led and Palestinian solidarity movements such as Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the Palestinian NGO Network, as well as human rights and legal groups, unions, and religious organizations of all faiths.
“It is important for La Via Campesina to support the South African initiative. What is happening in Palestine is an atrocity. In particular, the use of starvation as a weapon of war is part of a strategy of genocide that we need to denounce. The expulsion of farmers and land grabs in Gaza as well as the West Bank, is also part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing,” said Morgan Ody of the Confédération paysanne (France) and General Coordinator of La Vía Campesina International. “La Via Campesina calls upon the governments of the world, and in particular progressive governments and those in the Global South, to do everything in their power to stop Israel’s apartheid and colonization. Those governments have the responsibility to coordinate their efforts in order to ensure a future for Palestine and for all Palestinian people, and to make sure that those responsible for Israel’s crimes against humanity are held accountable.”
The coalition letter urges all signing organizations to press their “governments to immediately file a Declaration of Intervention in support of the South African case against Israel at the International Court of Justice to stop the killing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” So far, Malaysia and Turkiye, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which represents 57 member countries on four continents, have publicly supported South Africa’s case. Jordan reports that it intends to take the more legally substantive step of submitting a Declaration of Intervention. Members of ICGSP are working closely with a number of other countries that are in the process of doing the same.
“The South African filing before the ICJ marks a critical juncture which tests the global will to salvage the laws and systems which were designed to safeguard not merely human rights; but to preserve humanity itself,” emphasizes Lamis Deek, co-founder of The Global Legal Alliance for Palestine and the PAL Commission on War Crimes. “Genocide is the highest crime and none has been so publicly documented as the Israeli Genocide in Palestine. The sincerity of states' commitment to the principles of the Geneva and Genocide Conventions is now under heavy scrutiny. The very least states can do is to submit Declarations of Intervention as a small part of fulfilling their obligations under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention, to assure their people—and humanity—that they have lost neither their moral compass nor abdicated their obligations under international law.
The sign-on letter states:
“Many countries have rightly expressed their horror at the State of Israel's genocidal actions, war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed against Palestinians. Israeli Occupying Forces have bombed hospitals, residences, United Nations refugee centers, schools, places of worship and escape routes, killing and injuring tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 7, 2023. More than half of the dead are women and children. Israeli leaders have made brazenly genocidal statements openly declaring their intention to permanently and completely displace Palestinians from their own land.”
Despite the clear evidence of genocidal actions being committed daily by Israeli Occupying Forces, the State of Israel is actively soliciting nations to deny its atrocities and denounce South Africa’s case. At this moment, the United States, a major backer of the Israeli State that has vetoed three resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the United Nations Security Council, stands alone in denying that Israel is committing genocide.
Edith Ballantyne, former Secretary General and International President of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, warns, “I write from my personal experience over ten decades, spanning two world wars and living through fascism, with the absolute conviction that the basis of the conflict must be solved in a legal, political and non-violent way as the only means to achieve permanent peace desperately needed by the world’s peoples and for the survival of our planet.” She adds, “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was involved in the Middle East conflict since the 1920s when it recognized that what was happening in Palestine was destined to be catastrophic. The genocidal war the government of Israel is waging in the Occupied Palestinian Territories against the Palestinian People must be stopped. I urge all to challenge their governments to live up to the principles of the UN Charter and international law, including human rights and humanitarian law.”
The International Court of Justice, also called the World Court, will hear South Africa’s case against the Israeli State on January 11 and 12, 2024. The ICSGP is calling on endorsing organizations to join actions of support at The Hague during the hearing and to hold local rallies and vigils, including expressions of gratitude and solidarity at South African embassies, this week. Details about the hearing and where to watch it are here:https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240103-pre-01-00-en.pdf
As Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee it goes without saying that I spend most of my time focusing on domestic issues. How do we improve our dysfunctional health care system and lower the cost of prescription drugs? How do we make childcare and higher education affordable for working class families? How do we increase wages in America and make it easier for workers to join unions? These, and many other issues, are what I and the Committee focus on.
But, given the enormous international crises the world is now experiencing, I must tell you that I find myself spending more and more time on foreign affairs — especially the horrific war taking place in Gaza.
In my view, the current issue we face with Israel-Gaza is not complicated. While we recognize that Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law. In essence, the right-wing Netanyahu government of Israel has not just gone to war against Hamas. It has gone to war against the entire Palestinian people and the results have been catastrophic.
Most importantly for Americans, we must understand that Israel’s war against the Palestinian people has been significantly waged with U.S. bombs, artillery shells, and other forms of weaponry. In other words, we are complicit in this war.
Since October 7th, over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombs and over 57,000 have been wounded. Seventy percent of these victims have been women and children.
Since the beginning of this war 1.9 million Palestinian men, women, and children have been driven from their homes — 85% of the total population of Gaza. Despite the sharing of coordinates with Israeli forces, 40 UN facilities have sustained direct hits, 61 UN installations have suffered collateral damage, and 134 UN workers have been killed. The UN reports that over 234,000 housing units have been damaged and more than 46,000 homes completely destroyed, amounting to nearly 70 percent of the housing stock, a figure confirmed by academic analysis of satellite radar data. Today, not only are the vast majority of people in Gaza homeless, they lack food, water, medical supplies, and fuel. A recent UN report indicates that half of the population of about 2.2 million are at risk of starvation and 90 percent say that they regularly go without food for a whole day. The chief economist at the World Food Program said the humanitarian disaster in Gaza was among the worst he had ever seen. This cannot be allowed to continue.
To put this in historical perspective the destruction in Gaza is now equivalent to that of Dresden, where two years of bombing during World War II made the city’s name synonymous with total destruction. Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has documented that the Allied bombing of Dresden from 1943 to 1945 severely damaged 56% of its non-industrial buildings, half of its homes, and killed about 25,000 people. Meanwhile, the horrific fire-bombing of Japanese cities in 1945 destroyed 40% of the urban area of the 66 cities attacked, leaving 30% of Japan's population homeless. Gaza has passed these nightmarish thresholds in less than months.
My friends, we cannot turn our backs on the kind of suffering and inhumanity that is currently taking place in Gaza — especially when it is significantly caused by U.S. military support.
If thousands of innocent people can be killed by indiscriminate bombing. If millions of impoverished men, women, and children can be driven from their homes and denied the food, water, medical care, and fuel they need. If many hundreds of thousands of children undergo extraordinary psychic trauma as they witness horrific scenes of death and wanton destruction. If all this is accepted and allowed to happen without a response from us, then what we become responsible for is not just the nightmare in Gaza. It is the nightmare for all of humanity. Human cruelty and barbarism, already widespread on this Earth, will descend another notch lower — setting the stage for even worse horrors in the future.
Congress is working to pass a supplemental funding bill that includes $10 billion of unconditional military aid for the right-wing Netanyahu government to continue its brutal war against the Palestinian people. Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding. The taxpayers of the United States must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.
Declarations included from former Biden State Department official Josh Paul and from plaintiffs
December 23, 2023, New York – Hours after the U.S. abstained on a United Nations Security Council resolution that it had delayed for days seeking to allow humanitarian aid to Gaza, Palestinian organizations and individuals filed a reply last night to the U.S. government’s response to their genocide case, Defense for Children International-Palestine v. Biden. The filing supports the Palestinian plaintiffs’ request that the court immediately order the U.S. to stop supporting Israel’s unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and opposes the government’s efforts to have the case dismissed.
The Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel Van Der Hout LLP submitted detailed, sobering declarations from several of the plaintiffs (linked below) and from Josh Paul, the former high-ranking State Department official who resigned to protest U.S. support for and continued transfer of arms to Israel that would be used to commit human rights abuses and lead to significant civilian casualties in Gaza. The plaintiffs’ declarations describe additional harms and deaths – including at least 50 members of Al Haq’s Ahmed Abofoul’s extended family – suffered since they filed their complaint in mid-November, underscoring the need for an immediate injunction.
“The death count is unfathomable to me,” plaintiff A.N. wrote in one of the declarations submitted. “To be no longer in the dozens, nor the hundreds, even the thousands, and now the tens of thousands is something that I don’t have the capacity to process. I really can’t even count the dead, people under the rubble, or picture children dying from starvation.”
The case, filed on November 13, charged President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin with failing in their legal responsibility to prevent – and their complicity in – Israel’s unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. It seeks an emergency court order to halt U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel’s assault, including by enjoining the transfer of more weapons and support to the Israeli government. In its response, the government does not contest that Israel is committing genocide or that it is complicit in it, but rather focuses on technical jurisdictional issues, arguing that the court cannot review its policy choices and that it is Israel, an “independent actor,” causing plaintiffs’ injuries.
Last night’s filings refute those arguments and others, explaining that the court has a constitutional duty to enforce defendants’ legal obligations to prevent and not be complicit in genocide, and that it is clear, as both Israel and the U.S. have acknowledged, that Israel’s genocide could not happen without U.S. weapons and diplomatic cover.
“Israel is killing Palestinian children in Gaza – more than 8,000 so far – and is starving the rest, including our clients’ families, as Biden, Blinken, and Austin rush more weapons and block international efforts to stop them,” said Maria LaHood, Deputy Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “While the world watches in horror, feeling powerless, the court has the power, and the duty, to enforce the laws put in place to stop genocide and complicity in it. The rule of law, and our very humanity, depend on it.”
Josh Paul, the former State Department official, wrote in a declaration, “the United States provides and transfers to Israel a vast amount of military critical technologies and capabilities; that the United States is aware that these military critical technologies and capabilities will be used in ways that are contrary to U.S. law and Israel’s own commitments to the U.S. under applicable processes and agreements, and other requirements including international law; that the U.S. is willing and able to address such violations when they arise, or could arise, with other partners; and, that should the court direct the suspension of such military transfers and assistance to Israel, it would—‘more likely than not,’ to borrow a phrase from the Biden Administration’s own Conventional Arms Transfer Policy—have an impact on the Israeli military operations of concern to the Plaintiffs in this case.”
The filing also detailed information that has come to light since the complaint was filed, including reports on the transfer and use of U.S. weapons. The filing cites reports from early December that the United States had transferred to Israel at least 15,000 bombs, and more than 50,000 155mm artillery shells, which are inherently indiscriminate. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu also thanked President Biden on December 10th for the urgent shipment of 14,000 tank shells. Israel’s bombing and siege of Gaza has killed over 20,000 Palestinians in 76 days, including more than 8,000 children.
The plaintiffs in Gaza describe not only the fear and anxiety of the Israeli military assault, but the drastic deterioration of conditions of life for the people of Gaza: Dr. Omar Al-Najjar wrote in his declaration, “We are seeing enormous amounts of children with severe dehydration, febrile convulsions, and infectious diseases, including hepatitis and mumps. There are no oral rehydration salts in the Gaza Strip, which is a fluid and electrolyte therapy especially for dehydrated children with severe diarrhea. I have never seen these levels of malnutrition especially amongst children that I’m seeing now.”
The complaint was brought by the Palestinian human rights groups Al-Haq and Defense for Children International – Palestine; Palestinians who live in Gaza – Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, Ahmed Abu Artema, and Mohammed Abu Rokbeh; and Palestinians in the U.S. with family members who live in Gaza – Mohammad Monadel Herzallah, Laila Elhaddad, Waeil Elbhassi, Bassim Elkarra, and “A.N.” They are seeking an emergency court order to halt U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal assault.
The original complaint was accompanied by a declaration from William Schabas, the world’s leading legal expert on genocide, and a second declaration from the genocide and Holocaust scholars Dr. John Cox, Dr. Victoria Sanford, Dr. Barry Trachtenberg.
The government’s next filing is due January 12, and the court will hear arguments on January 26, 2024.
The San Francisco law firm of Van Der Hout LLP is co-counsel in the case.
For more information, see the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken onoppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.
Declarations included from former Biden State Department official Josh Paul and from plaintiffs
By Norman Solomon, World BEYOND War, December 26, 2023
To: President Joe Biden
You’ve often spoken of how much you care about children and how terrible it is when they’re murdered. “Too many schools, too many everyday places have become killing fields,” yousaidat the White House last spring on the one-year anniversary of the school shooting in Uvalde. At the time of that tragedy in Texas, you had quickly gone on live television,speakinggravely.
“There are parents who will never see their child again,” you said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.”
And you asked plaintively: “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?”
The massacre in Uvalde took the lives of 19 children. For nearly three months, the ongoing massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many children every few hours.
In mid-November, after five weeks of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, the director-general of the World Health Organizationreportedthat children were being killed at an average rate of six per hour, adding that “nowhere and no one is safe.” Palestinian civilians of all ages continue to undergo slaughter, with the death tollsurpassing 20,000.
You have continued to voice support for Israel’s military assault on Gaza and its residents. After 10 weeks of the carnage, when you got around toexpressing a bit of concernabout Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing,” you were meanwhile still doing everything you could togreenlightandfast trackmassive U.S. shipments of weapons and ammunition to Israel so that the indiscriminate bombing could continue.
Even your belated and inadequate words on Dec. 12 about “indiscriminate bombing” apparently caused you to have second thoughts. The next day, Voice of Americareportedthat “the White House appears to be walking back” your comment about “indiscriminate bombing.”
Most important, of course, are not words but deeds. As commander-in-chief, since early October you have approved large-scale shipments to Israel of 2,000-pound bombs — described by the New York Times as “one of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals,” a weapon that “unleashes a blast wave and metal fragments thousands of feet in every direction.”
In a Dec. 21 video report based on analysis of “aerial imagery and artificial intelligence” — headlined “Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza’s Civilians to Move for Safety” — the Times indicated that “Israel used these munitions in the area it designated safe for civilians at least 200 times.” Those 2,000-pound bombs have been “a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.”
Since the war in Gaza began 11 weeks ago, the Times reported, “the U.S. has sent more than 5,000 2,000-pound bombs” to Israel. And after a long phone conversation with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on Dec. 23, youtoldthe press: “I did not ask for a ceasefire.”
With your ongoing help, Israel is continuing to murder children and other civilians in Gaza just as methodically as the gunman murdered children at the elementary school in Uvalde. And you have continued to provide weaponry for the murders just as surely as the gun shop in Uvalde sold firearms and ammunition to the man who went on to kill at the elementary school.
But that is an unfair comparison — unfair to the Uvalde gun-shop owner, who did not know the intended use of the weapons and ammo. But you know what the billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and bombs gifted by the U.S. government are being used for.
When three 9-year-old students were among those shot to death at a school in Nashville last March, youspokeabout them the next day. “A family’s worst nightmare has occurred,” you said. “Those children should all be with us still,” you said. And you said: “We know the names of the victims.”
But you don’t knowthe namesof the children you’ve helped to murder in Gaza. And there are so many.
_________________________________
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books includingWar Made Easy. His latest book,War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.
Pope says children dying in Gaza are the “little Jesuses of today”: Day 79
Dec 25, 2023
Scouts hold a sign in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, on the day of a visit by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, to the Old City of Bethlehem(photo)
Pope Francis speaks about Palestine on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; deadly airstrikes in Gaza, raids in West Bank; another video released of stripped Palestinian hostages
In hisChristmas Day address, Pope Francis calls for end to ‘appalling harvest’ of civilians in Gaza; children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today.”Addressing thousands of people from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, he pleaded for an end to Israel’s “appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims” in Gaza as he called for a solution to “the desperate humanitarian situation” in the besieged enclave.
Speaking atChristmas Eve mass, Pope Francis began with a lament – “Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world.”He spoke just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to fight deeper into the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Aftermath of Israeli air attacks on homes at Maghazi camp(photo)
Israel’s attack on Maghazi camp, which killedover 100, was a ‘complete and real extermination.’It was one of the deadliest attacks in two and a half months of war.One survivor said, “this place witnessed what humans could not bear and we continue to search under the rubble with our hands.”
Israeli attacks on Jabaliyain northern Gaza targeted, not homes as usual, but small local businesses.One local reporter said, “The private sector is being destroyed across the Gaza Strip.”
In the Bureij refugee camp, at least 61 Palestinians havereportedlybeen killed by Israeli bombing so far,says Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
A man holds a crying child at the Maghazi camp, where many who fled Israeli attacks in northern Gaza are now residing.(photo)
CAIR Calls forProbe of New VideoShowing Hundreds of Stripped Palestinians ‘Humiliated’ in Captured Gaza Stadium:The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called for an international probe of online images showing hundreds of Palestinians civilians including the disabled, women, the elderly, and even a baby, moststripped to their underwear and paraded in a captured Gaza stadium.
A number of Palestinians detained by Israel have reported being tortured and abused. The video, reportedly taken by an Israeli photojournalist, does not offer details of the location or date of the alleged war crime.
In this screengrab from the recent video, two apparently young boys are seen standing with the adult hostages.(social media)
In the West Bank:Anongoing raidon the town of Burqa, northwest of Nablus, has lasted about 20 hours.Late Sunday, the Israeli army stormed the village, closed all its entrances, raided some 200 homes, and carried out widespread arrests, according to Ghassan Daghlas, the acting governor of Nablus. He said, “I am currently inspecting the homes that were raided. What I see in the house that I am now in is disaster and massive destruction.”
At least eight Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have sustained injuries as a result of attacks by Israeli forces and illegal settlers,according to Ahmed Jibril, the director of ambulance and emergency services at the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS).
Israeli forces reportedly conductedmassive raidson two refugee camps in the West Bank town of Tulkarem overnight.
Palestinians survey the damage of an Israeli attack on the Maghazi refugee camp.(photo)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – DECEMBER 24:
Palestinian death toll since October 7: at least 20,506*(~20,203 in Gaza* (over 8,663 children), and at least 303 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 8,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 27,137 Palestinian deaths.
*IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although muchevidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation.
Palestinian injuries since October 7: at least 58,665** (including at least 55,000 in Gaza** and 3,665 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to provide an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.
Reported Israeli death toll since October 7: ~1,139 (7 killed in West Bank, 157 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 5,431 injured, approximately 36 children).
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here. Live broadcast news from the region is Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
At least 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Khan Younis and Al-Maghazi refugee camp, as a new Euro-Med Monitor report documents brutal Israeli crimes against civilians sheltering in Palestinian schools, including executions.
Since the commencement of the comprehensive aggression against Palestinians, the occupying authorities have conducted widespread arrest campaigns affecting various segments of the Palestinian population in different locations. The number of detainees from the West Bank and Jerusalem since the 7th of October until today has reached (4575) detainees, aside from hundreds of cases of arrests from Gaza.
Amid the complete isolation imposed on prisoners, specifically from Gaza, and with the International Committee of the Red Cross being denied visits, and lawyers barred from visiting detainees from Gaza, an article published in the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” revealed the heinous crimes committed against male and female detainees in the "Sdeh Teiman" and "Anatot" army camps. The article highlighted that a number of detainees have been killed inside these camps without any confirmation yet regarding their numbers or identities. It also pointed out that the detainees endure extremely harsh conditions, being handcuffed and blindfolded most of the time. There are children and elderly Palestinians inside the "Sdeh Teiman" camp, while women are held in the "Anatot" camp in addition to the "Sdeh Teiman" camp. Prisoners in these camps sleep on very thin mattresses on the floor.
In the same context, there are over 30 Palestinian female detainees from Gaza in Damon Prison, suffering harsh conditions. Among the prisoners are children, elderly, sick, and wounded women. The eldest among them is an 82-year-old suffering from Alzheimer's disease. These detainees from Gaza are prohibited from communicating or interacting with other female prisoners in different cells within the prison. They have been barred from visits by lawyers until today. Moreover, they are provided with inadequate and poor-quality meals, and they are allowed only a short shower time, not exceeding 15 minutes, for more than 30 detainees. Additionally, their rooms are raided and searched daily.
Furthermore, two days ago, a large force of soldiers stormed the room of the detainees from Gaza, interrogated them, and transferred five of them to an undisclosed location.
The crimes of occupation aren't limited to forcibly concealing Gaza detainees in military camps. The law is also manipulated to hide detainees. Since the aggression began, the occupying authorities have amended military orders and laws to facilitate the prolonged detention of Palestinians without due legal process. They amended the Unlawful Combatant Law multiple times, allowing the issuance of an unlawful combatant order for up to 42 days instead of 7 days. The judicial review sessions now occur within 45 days instead of 14, and detainees can be prevented from meeting their lawyer for 80 days. Regarding emergency regulations preventing detainees under interrogation from meeting their lawyers, the prohibition period extends to 90 days. These amendments, prolonging the duration detainees are prohibited from meeting their lawyers and the periods they must appear before a judge, constitute another form of enforced disappearance. Lawyers are unaware of the detainee's whereabouts or the conditions they face. These amendments aim to prevent lawyers from monitoring and documenting the crimes and violations against Palestinian detainees.
In this context, the complicity of Israeli judges in the crime of enforced disappearance becomes evident. Judges' approval of extending the detention of detainees for prolonged periods while preventing them from meeting their lawyers is tantamount to judicial endorsement of torture, ill-treatment, and an attempt to conceal these crimes from lawyers and human rights organizations working in the field, especially in the absence of any international monitoring of the conditions of detention.
Enforced disappearance is considered a crime against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court[1]. Given the International Criminal Court's reluctance to play its role in swiftly and effectively investigating occupation crimes and the clear bias shown by the prosecutor against Palestinians, we call on states to uphold their responsibilities, which include working towards a swift and effective investigation to hold the occupying state accountable for all its crimes over the past 75 years. This should be done in accordance with its obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
[1] Article (7)(1)(I), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
(“My children have digestive problems and vomit all the time, and I cannot find a way to treat them,” Naima Al-Tatrisaidfrom Rafah yesterday. “Hospitals are full.”
“We thought we would be safe in Khan Younis,” Batoul Mohamed Abou Aliwrote. “We thought wrong.”
“In the face of daily massacres by [Zionist] forces, retaliating for their shameful failures in battle, your unwavering support is a bright hope in these dark times,” Mustafa Elmasriwrote. “We remain unbroken, resilient, and more determined than ever.”)
The Workers In 71 Congressional Offices Have Recorded A Total More Than 690,000 Calls For A Cease-Fire.
But most are “unnoticed and unheard,” an open letter said.
Congressional interns and fellows released a letter on Monday accusing Congress of having “suppressed and ignored” a tidal wave of constituent support for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
More than 140 interns and fellows signed the letter, and 71 disclosed the number of calls and emails in support of a cease-fire that their offices have recorded. Those 71 offices (out of the total of 535) have received a total of 693,170 messages supporting a cease-fire since Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip began in early October.
But in spite of constituents’ outreach, most senators and representatives have refused to publicly support a cease-fire — and privately, the letter said, many senior staffers responsible for briefing members of Congress are downplaying the number and intensity of the calls.
“In some cases, Members of Congress are not being adequately briefed about the volume or contents of these messages,” the letter says. “In several instances, senior staff have deliberately provided inaccurate information about these data to Members. In other cases, Members have willfully ignored the pleas of large swaths of their constituents.”
Congressional phone lines have been clogged with calls for a cease-fire almost since the very start of hostilities, staffers have previously reported.
Following a Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and took more than 200 hostage, Israel has bombed much of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have killed an estimated 18,000 Palestinians, a large share of them children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The indiscriminate nature of the retaliation, coupled with the Biden administration’s steadfast support for its closest military ally, has sparked nationwide protests in the U.S. and profound outrage among many of the president’s own voters.
“While we refrain from telling our bosses how to do their jobs, as congressional interns and fellows, we owe it to the American people to expose the patent malpractice of Congress,” the letter says. “We can no longer stand by while the voices of constituents are suppressed and ignored by their elected officials.”
The letter came together after interns and fellows in several offices witnessed senior staff downplaying the number of calls and emails supporting a cease-fire, one of the letter’s organizers told HuffPost. In his office, a senior staffer quoted a number to the congressman that was 3,000 less than the actual number of callers, the organizer said.
“It’s very deliberate,” he said. “They see these overwhelming numbers, and they decrease it.”
Signers of the letter work in Democratic and Republican offices and are remaining anonymous out of fear of career retaliation. The organizers, who spoke with HuffPost on the condition they not be named, verified the identities of those who signed.
Because interns answer the vast majority of constituent calls, many of those who signed the letter have personally fielded thousands of calls from constituents demanding a cease-fire.
“Out of the tens of thousands of calls made to our office, one in particular stood out to me: A constituent called in tears to share that her husband’s family had been killed in a hospital bombing in Gaza,” wrote one of the letter’s signers. “She had pleaded with me to change the Member’s stance on the war.”
One intern told HuffPost she signed the letter out of frustration with what she sees as apathy in her office, in contrast to the outrage she was hearing on the phone.
“The desperation of constituents, the frustration of constituents day in and day out was really consistent,” she said. “A lot of times they’re angry, threatening to pull votes, threatening to organize against the member. I’m not seeing the seriousness of that reflected.”
It has been 63 days since the atrocities carried out by Hamas in southern Israel, and since Israel began its nightmarish assault on the Gaza Strip. October 7, the first day of the war, was also the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which occurs on the last day of the holiday of Sukkot. Now, two months later, we find ourselves beginning the next Jewish holiday: Hanukkah. But this Hanukkah feels more complicated than any I can remember.
A week before the start of Hanukkah, Israeli soldiers brought a huge hanukkiah — a nine-branched candelabrum lit by Jews around the world during the eight-day festival — into Gaza. The soldier holding the camera proudly smiles and announces that it is “the first hanukkiah in Gaza,” while the other soldiers around him cheer, the rubble of Palestinian homes and buildings visible in the background. A headline about the hanukkiah in the right-wing Israeli newspaper Israel Hayomproudly stated: “We will drive out the darkness with light.” But looking at soldiers assembling a hanukkiah on top of the ruins of Gaza, where the army has killed more than 17,000 Palestinians in the past two months, was a moment of deep darkness for me.
This image brought to mind a Hanukkah photo from a very different place and time: one in which a hanukkiah sits on a windowsill while, in the background, a swastika flag hangs from a building. The photo, taken in 1931 in Kiel, Germany, strikingly captures the eve of Nazism’s ascension. That hanukkiah was lit by Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner and his wife, Rachel — my great-uncle and great-aunt.
The fact that this photo is part of my own family archive has always made me proud. Like any photo, it can be read in different ways. For me, it represents a legacy of defiance, the importance of celebrating one’s Jewishness as a subversive act, and the significance of holding on to ritual even in the face of grave danger. It symbolizes the power of resistance and moral courage, which are core to the kind of Jewishness I seek to embody.
The hanukkiah lit in Kiel against the backdrop of a swastika feels like the polar opposite of the hanukkiah standing on the ruins of Gaza. While the Kiel hanukkiah celebrates defiance in the face of oppression and the sanctity of ritual, the Gaza hanukkiah glorifies death and destruction.
This death and destruction is not an accident or an unintended consequence of Israel’s military operation in Gaza: Israeli officials have called for a permanent forcible transfer of Palestinians in Gaza, and, as our recent investigation demonstrated, the army is fully aware of civilian casualties when choosing its targets. Among the Israeli public, too, there is increasing legitimacy for calls to “flatten Gaza” and decreasing concern for the collective punishment being carried out against civilians.
In less than a century, we have moved from lighting candles against a backdrop of the genocide of Jews to a world in which there are Jews lighting candles to affirm, legitimize, and celebrate a genocide that they themselves are involved in committing.
Reflecting on the brave acts of Jewish resistance and defiance throughout history, including my own family lighting that hanukkiah against the backdrop of the swastika, ought to push us in the Jewish community to consider more seriously how we can use our faith, tradition, and culture to bring about a more just world. Jewish history is rich with examples of how we have opposed fascism and resisted racism throughout history. Turning to those examples at this difficult time can help us in fighting the widespread hatred, fear, and vengeance that are currently so prevalent in Israeli society.
Looking to our history for inspiration does not mean romanticizing those moments in which Jews were under horrific attacks and dealt with grave danger, bolstering an image of the Jew as constantly suffering and a pariah by disposition and destiny. But the violence and racism inflicted upon us as Jews should be a constant reminder to cherish humanity above all and resist racism enacted in our name.
As I prepare to light my own hanukkiah, it feels unbelievable that the war is still raging, that the Israeli army is continuing its unchecked attacks on Gaza, and that Israeli hostages are still being held captive. This Hanukkah, may the Kiel hanukkiah serve as a call to celebrate and treasure life.
Inspired by the defiance embodied in my family’s hannukiah, we must call to prioritize bringing home all of the hostages, to stop the immense death and suffering being inflicted on Palestinians, and to achieve a political resolution that ensures all human lives between the river and the sea are protected. We must demand that genocides are a thing of the past and work to bring light into our midst through resistance to racism and fascism — including when it comes from those who claim to speak in our name.
There is always another way to read history and to brush against its grain in support of the crucial value of humanism. In this horrific moment in Israel-Palestine, my great-aunt and great-uncle’s hanukkiah teaches us to not be afraid to dissent, and to fight to drive out the darkness and bring in the light.
HappyHanukkah, Dana Mills Resource Development Manager, +972 Magazine
‘It would’ve been better if they shot us’: Palestinians recount prison abuse
Newly released inmates detail cases of humiliation, torture, rape threats, and a prisoner beaten to death by Israeli forces in the weeks since October 7.
An Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress
November 28, 2023
Hamas-Israel-Gaza-Genocide
We are writing to exercise our First Amendment to petition Congress for redress of grievances. We are urging Congress to end the United States’ unconditional, close, and continual military and intelligence support of Israel in its ongoing physical destruction of 2.3 million Palestinians residing in Gaza. The United States is responsible for genocide under any plain reading of the Genocide Convention.
Congress commands plenary power over the foreign policy of the United States. It employed the power of the purse to end United States combat in Indochina on August 16, 1973. It prohibited the CIA from intermeddling in Angola with the Clark Amendment in 1975. And by statute, Congress has insisted that Israel receive weapons that ensure a Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbors.
Words only diminish our revulsion at the congressional dereliction in enabling President Joe Biden to transfer weapons and share real-time intelligence with Israel to destroy Palestinian civilians in Gaza in violation of multiple laws: the Genocide Convention, the federal prohibition of genocide,18 U.S.C. 1091, the Leahy Amendments, the Declare War Clause of the Constitution, and the statutory restriction on the use of American arms for defensive purposes only.
Why has Congress neglected public hearings to expose and redress these offenses to the rule of law?
Congress should enact a Joint Resolution endorsing a two-state solution featuring a Palestinian state initially administered by a United Nations caretaker mission to organize free and fair elections.
The United States’ current unlawful foreign policy is indistinguishable from “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” voiced by Thucydides inHistory ofthe Peloponnesian War.
Section 2 of the Genocide Convention defines the crime as including “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Evidence in the public domain authoritatively establishes that Israel is intentionally creating conditions of life in Gaza intended to physically destroy the 2.3 million Palestinian occupants. Israeli officials, without dissent, announced a siege of Gaza including the genocidal refrain, “no food, no water, no power, no electricity, no medicine, no shelter, no anything.” See e.g., “‘Erase Gaza’: Conflict Unleashes Inflammatory Rhetoric From Israeli Leaders,”New York Times,A7, November 16, 2023. Palestinians are even prohibited from collecting or storing rainwater which is considered the property of the Israeli government.
The siege of Gaza’s population has been fortified by a land invasion and bombings of hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bread bakeries, water mains, schools, apartment buildings, marketplaces, fleeing refugee families to nowhere, journalists, mosques, churches, and clearly marked United Nations schools and relief sites. Death certificates are prepared before the ink on birth certificates dries. Fires cannot be extinguished. Diseases are spreading. Deaths are at least 20,000 and probably twice or three times that number increasing by the hour, from lack of water, food, and urgent medical treatment, for those homeless battered families being driven south under Israeli bombardment and communications blackouts. There are no safe sanctuaries whether in North or South Gaza – even in hospitals they blockaded. Gaza is a free fire zone for the IDF.
Israel has turned its brutal war machine on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza. Israel’s President declaimed, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” An Israeli Knesset member echoed, “The Children of Gaza brought it upon themselves.” The Defense Minister insisted, “We are fighting human animals and will treat them accordingly.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu added that the Gaza conflict is between 21stcentury progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.” He reminded Israeli Jews of the Lord’s ordering the destruction of Amalek in the Book of Samuel, “This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
The Nazis in World War II attempted to conceal the Holocaust fearing legal accountability. Israel’s genocide is unfolding in plain view confidant of impunity, including unconditional callous congressional support and gross misdirection of taxpayer dollars for violence, in lieu of satisfying the critical needs of the American people.
Congress is poised, without even public hearings and witnesses, to spend an additional $14.3 billion of taxpayer dollars to compensate for a staggering blunder of Israeli intelligence.Why?
Israel has taken an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth standard of justice of Leviticus to a criminal, genocidal level: 10,000 eyes for an eye, 10,000 teeth for a tooth. It is turning Gaza into a vast sick and dying huddle of civilian families exposed to American bombs and missiles. As theWashington Postreported, “hunger, thirst and disease are quickly spreading.” Babies are dying alone having lost their parents.
Had the touted Israeli defenses and intelligence not been colossally AWOL, the October 7th attack could never have occurred. As one elderly Holocaust survivor toldThe New York Times,“It should never have happened…”
President Biden has made the United States a belligerent and co-belligerent with Israel against Hamas without a constitutionally required declaration of war by Congress. Systematically providing the IDF with massive weapons made us a co-belligerent and sharing real-time battlefield intelligence made us a belligerent.
Such presidential wars are impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors as Mr. Biden himself vigorously underscored in his presidential campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination in an interview with Chris Matthews on Hardball on December 4, 2007.
Listen further to the fundamental, historical provocation of the war as elaborated by David Ben-Gurion, founder and first Prime Minister of Israel:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Printed in “The Jewish Paradox,” (p. 121) by Nahum Goldmann.
Ben Gurion’s recognition was echoed by Israel’s acclaimed war hero Moshe Dayan. Standing close to the Gaza border in 1956 eulogizing a 21-year-old Israeli security officer who had been slain by Palestinian and Egyptian assailants, Dayan reflected, “Let us not today cast blame on his murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years now, they have sat in refugee camps of Gaza and watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their land and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.”
Also often forgotten by most Members of Congress is P.M Netanyahu’s widely quoted strategy of supporting and funding Hamas over the years to thwart a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Roger Cohen of theNew York Timeswrote on October 22, 2023, “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’”
The “From the river to the sea” expression originated with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party pressing for a “Greater Israel” in all of Palestine, not with Hamas. Further, the idea is also consistent with peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews, by people advocating a one-state solution.
Dante observed, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” The Congressional positions against Palestinian civilians, three-quarters of whom are children and women, are far beyond neutrality. Read the front-page article of the New York Times (November 26, 2023) headlined: “Israel Has Killed More Women and Children Than Have Been Killed in Ukraine.”
Congress should follow the example of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 who interceded in the Suez crisis to stop the attacks by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, on Egypt. He also initiated the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Sinai.
Congress should conduct public hearings in the House and Senate featuring prominent and longtime Israeli peace advocates, holding past high-level government positions, along with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Their voices have been excluded from Capitol Hill since 1948. You know why? Shame!
Congress cannot escape the judgment of history which will endure for the ages over its defining role in the annihilation of innocent Palestinian families – mostly children and women – inside Gaza – long described as Israel’s illegally blockaded open-air prison.
We look forward to a congressional response, from U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives respectful of citizen petitions.
At the Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) we seek to continually change the narrative, share our stories, and foster understanding of our common humanity through art and storytelling. In this dire time, we want to share a selection of films that showcase the history, culture and people of Palestine.
Our hope is that this free program, entitledPALESTINIAN VOICES, can be a resource to provide insight into the current situation unfolding in Gaza and the people being affected.
PALESTINIAN VOICESwill run through the entire month of November. You can watch most of the films in this series online and from anywhere in the world. A few titles are limited to viewers in the United States and some films will also screen in person in select cities.
Additionally, we have joined a global effort organized byFilm Lab Palestineto present in-person screenings of an Arab Film Festival favorite,Gaza Surf Clubon November 2, 8pm local time. Check below for listings near you.
Christian Organizations Demand Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
USA - November 20, 2023
What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out, simply because you have the power to do so. When you want a piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence.
—Micah 2:1–2 (NLT)
As a diverse coalition of Christian voices longing for justice and peace in the Holy Land, we are horrified at the loss of innocent life in Israel and the genocidal massacre, destruction and inhumane siege on civilians in Gaza. We are likewise heartbroken and outraged by the cruelty and complicity of U.S. government officials, and the cowardice or callous indifference of many of our religious leaders and institutions.
In response, we call on our members and constituencies to demand:
An immediate ceasefire by all parties;
The adequate provision of humanitarian aid;
Accountability for the perpetrators and enablers of war crimes, in accordance with international law;
The comprehensive dismantling of the brutal and dehumanizing regime of Israeli apartheid, including its occupation and blockade, with full rights and equality for all living in the Holy Land, and the right of return for all refugees; and,
An end to US military aid to Israel, an end to settler violence and IDF complicity in the West Bank, the release of all Palestinian and Israeli hostages, administrative detainees, and political prisoners, and full compliance with international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.
The laws of armed conflict are clear. Neither civilians nor civilian institutions can be targeted. Yet, Palestinians in Gaza have been under the most intense and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment ever, targeting homes, markets, schools and universities, hospitals, health workers, journalists, and the entire civilian infrastructure, while cutting off all food, water, medicine and fuel. Since October 7th, Israeli forces have murdered upwards of 12,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 5000 of whom are children. Over a million and a half have been displaced, particularly as a result of “evacuation” orders, which amount to ethnic cleansing. Furthermore, prominent Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal has described what Israel is doing in Gaza as“a textbook case of genocide.”Over 800 international scholars, including world authorities on genocide studies, as well as US and Palestinian human rights organizations and UN experts have all warned of an unfolding genocide. Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians, supported militarily and politically by the US and major European powers, is undermining the legitimacy of international law in the eyes of many states.
We confess that we ourselves, our religious leaders, and our institutions have too often dismissed the example of Jesus when we have stood with the status quo and allied ourselves with the powers that be. Too often, we have failed to name and confront false prophets who provide ideological cover for authority and its abuses, destructive wars, and the neglect, exploitation, and sacrifice of those most vulnerable upon the altars of profit and politics.Religious devotion is being weaponized in the service of profound evil.In Palestine/Israel, there are countless ways in which religious ideologies and institutions have been employed in the service of violent dispossession and oppression, working to provide theological justification, financial capital, and political cover for decades of land confiscation, ethnic cleansing, settlement activity, and apartheid. And now, genocide itself.
Hearing the voice of the biblical prophets, however, and recognizing how often Jesus draws from them in his life and ministry, must dispel any notion that God stands with the status quo or alongside the agents of imperial violence. As followers of Jesus, along with those who seek to stand in the tradition of the biblical prophets,we are morally bound to raise our voices and stand against the perpetrators of grave injustice—particularly genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid—and their ideological enablers. As people of faith, we must expose, condemn, and confront injustice and deconstruct death-dealing theologies and ideologies wherever they are found.
We acknowledge the reality that Zionism emerged within a context of abhorrent, deplorable anti-Jewish discrimination and violence, and we lament that Palestinians have been unjustly paying the price for centuries of western bigotry.
The eyes of history are upon us. We therefore:confess our complicity; raise our collective voice in protest; renounce the complicity and cowardice of our leaders and institutions along with the ideological justifications constructed in defense of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid; and call for an accountability for war crimes undertaken now in Gaza and throughout historic Palestine.
Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people of the land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy. Likewise, help us to eliminate our cruelty to these, our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CAIRO, Egypt: The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world.
Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totalled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with thesemilitary, internal security, surveillance, intelligence-gathering and lawenforcement agencies, explains the fulsome support Israel’s allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza. When Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian resistance groups as a “terrorist attack” and said “terrorism is killing innocent children in Palestine,” Israel immediately halted all sales of defense and security equipment to Colombia. This global cabal, dedicated to permanent war and keeping its populations monitored and controlled, has hundreds of billions of dollars a year in sales. These technologies are cementing into place a supranational corporate totalitarianism, a world where populations are enslaved in ways that past totalitarian regimes could only imagine.
The genocidal assault on Gaza is another chapter in the century-long ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Israeli settler colonial project. It is accompanied, as is true for all settler colonial projects, by the theft of natural resources, land, water and the natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields, 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, which could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In a world of diminishing resources, especially water in the Middle East, and the dislocations caused by the climate crisis, Gaza is the prelude to a frightening new world order. As democracies wither and die, as economic inequality expands, as poverty and desperation mounts, the global ruling class will increasingly do to us - once we become restive and attempt to rebel - what they are doing to the Palestinians.
It is not a far cry from Gaza to the camps and detention centers set up for migrants fleeing to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. It is not a far cry from the carpet bombing in Gaza to the endless wars in the Middle East and the global south. It is not a far cry from the anti-terrorism laws used to criminalize dissent in Israel to the anti-terrorism laws introduced in Europe and the U.S.
On Oct. 7, Palestinians in Gaza escaped from their laboratory cage. They went on a killing spree against their sadistic masters. Almost 12,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 30,000 wounded, including 4,700 children, since Oct. 7 in the hurricane of shells, bullets, bombs and missiles that are turning Gaza into a wasteland. Nearly 3,000 Palestinians are missing or buried under the rubble. Soon Palestinians will be convulsed by infectious diseases and starvation. Those who survive, if Israel succeeds in its ethnic cleansing, will become refugees, yet again, over the border in Egypt. There remain plenty of Palestinian test subjects in the West Bank. Gaza will be closed for business.
Israel, which is not a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, has long supplied some of the most heinous regimes on the planet with weaponry, including the apartheid government of South Africa and Myanmar. India is Israel’s largest purchaser of military drones. Israel provided UAVs, missiles and mortars to Azerbaijan for its invasion and occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, which displaced 100,000 people, more than 80 percent of the enclave’s ethnic Armenians. Israel sold napalm and weapons to the Salvadoran military, as well as the murderous regime of General José Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala, when I covered the wars in the 1980s in Central America. Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns were the weapons of choice for Central American death squads. Israel also sold weapons to the Bosnian Serbs, despite international sanctions, when I covered the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, a conflict that took the lives of 100,000 people.
“Israel is a key player in the EU battle to both militarize its borders and deter new arrivals, a policy that hugely accelerated after the massive influx of migrants in 2015, principally due to the wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” writes Anthony Loewenstein in “The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World,” “The EU has partnered with leading Israeli defense companies to use its drones, and of course years of experience in Palestine is a key selling point.”
“The similarities between the US–Mexico border and Israel’s wall through the occupied territories are growing by the year,” he writes. “One informs and inspires the other, with tech companies always looking for new ways to target and capture perceived enemies. The use of high-tech surveillance tools to monitor the border was backed by both Republicans and Democrats. One company during the Trump years, the billionaire Peter Theil–backed Brinc, tested the possibility of deploying armed drones that would taser migrants with a stun gun along the US–Mexico border.”
Heron TP “Eitan” drones, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries - Israel’s largest aerospace and defense company and the country’s largest arms exporter - are used by Frontex, the European Union’s external border and coastal agency, to monitor and deter migrant and refugee boats in the Mediterranean. The drones, which fly up to 40 hours continuously, can be modified to carry four Spike rockets with fragmentation sleeves of thousands of 3mm tungsten cubes that puncture metal and “cause tissue to be torn from flesh,” in essence shredding the victim. They are routinely used on Palestinians.
“It’s almost impossible to cross the Mediterranean [as a migrant],” Felix Weiss, of the German NGO Sea-Watch, told Loewenstein. “Frontex has become a militarized actor, its equipment coming from war zones,” he added.
Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private weapons firm, supplies U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with hi-tech surveillance towers which it uses along the border with Mexico. It also supplied the CBP with its Hermes drone in 2004 in order to test the feasibility of using UAVs on the border.
Pegasus, a phone-hacking tool produced by the Israeli NSO Group, a cyber intelligence agency, was used by Mexican drug cartels to target the journalist Griselda Triana, after her husband Javier Valdez Cárdenas, also an investigative reporter, was assassinated in 2017. The Mexican government is directly implicated in targeting journalists and civil society members with Pegasus spyware, according to research and analysis by Canada’s Citizen Lab. After the reporter Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in Oct. 2018, it was discovered that an NSO client targeted the phone of his fiancé, Hanan Elatr. Pegasus transforms a cellular phone into a mobile surveillance device, with microphones and cameras activated without the user’s knowledge.
Skunk water, a putrid smelling liquid, was tested and perfected on Palestinians, often with Israeli film crews recording the attacks to show potential clients the effectiveness of the chemical.
“Israeli forces routinely douse entire Palestinian neighborhoods in skunk water, deliberately spraying it into private homes, businesses, schools and funerals in what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls ‘a collective punitive measure’ against Palestinian villages that engage in protest against Israel’s colonial violence,” The Electronic Intifada reported in 2015. That same year, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department purchased 14 canisters of skunk to use against protesters following demonstrations that erupted after the police killing of unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri.
Israelcreated a sophisticated facial recognition system, Red Wolf, to document every Palestinian in the occupied territories. The technology “is used extensively” to “consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing, segregation, and curbing freedom of movement, violating Palestinians’ basic rights,” Amnesty International explains in its recent report titled “Automated Apartheid.” The French investigative outlet Discloserevealed that French police have been unlawfully using facial recognition software provided by the Israeli tech firm BriefCam for eight years. BriefCam’s technology allows users to “detect, track, extract, classify [and] catalog” people “appearing in video surveillance footage in real-time.”
AI-machine guns, manufactured by the Israeli company SMARTSHOOTER, can fire stun grenades and sponge-tipped bullets as well as tear gas. They were perfected in trials on the Palestinians in the West Bank. SMARTSHOOTER was recently awarded a contract to supply the British Army with its SMASH “automatic targeting and firing system” which can be attached to small arms such as automatic rifles.
Israel, according to Jeff Halper in his book “War Against the People,” has done cutting edge work on cyborg soldiers. It developed a radar system that sees through walls, he writes. As The Electronic Intifada explains, Israel’s military-industrial complex has built “a tank named Cruelty, a 20-gram drone in the shape of a butterfly, a stealth ‘wonder boat’ called the Death Shark, a series of weapons named after insects or natural phenomena (bionic hornets, smart dust, dragonfly drones and smart dew robots), cybernetic insects, a 600-building ‘urban warfare’ training center nicknamed Chicago and a one-megaton bomb containing electromagnetic pulse capability.”
Harper notes that during the occupation of Iraq, the U.S. military replicated the tactics used by Israel against the Palestinians. It constructed a security barrier around the Baghdad Green Zone, imposed closures on towns and villages, carried out targeted assassinations, copied Israeli torture techniques and used checkpoints and roadblocks to isolate towns and villages.
Israel trains and equips U.S. police forces, teaching aggressive tactics, backed up by heavy military hardware and vehicles, which were used in Ferguson and Atlanta during the police confrontations with activists who were protesting Cop City.
Harper calls this the “Palestinianization” of global conflicts.
“With so many Israeli companies involved in maintaining the infrastructure around the occupation, these firms found innovative ways to sell their services to the state, test the latest technology on Palestinians, and then promote them around the world,” Loewenstein explains. And while “the defense industries are increasingly in private hands,” following decades of neoliberal privatization, “they continue to act as an extension of Israel’s foreign policy agenda, supporting its goals and pro-occupation ideology.”
The global ruling class will counter the destabilizing forces of inequality, curtailment of civil liberties, collapsing infrastructure, failing health systems and increasing shortages caused by an accelerating climate crisis, by branding all who resist as “human animals.” This new world order began in Gaza. It ends at home.
AOC leads Democrats urging Biden to call for Gaza ceasefire over children’s rights
Exclusive: Twenty-four representatives led by Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan (WI) and McCollum ‘express deep concern about intensifying war’ in letter
Twenty-four Democrats in Congress have urged Joe Biden to end “grave violations of children’s rights” by pushing for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Ina letter to the US presidentseen by the Guardian, representatives led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Betty McCollum of Minnesota say at least 4,500 children have been killed and at least 1,700 reported missing during Israel’s withering offensive.
“We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war inGaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral ceasefire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East,” the letter begins. “Further, we write urging clarity on your strategic objectives for achieving de-escalation and stability in the region.”
It is co-signed by congressmen and women including Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Joaquin Castro, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, Summer Lee, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. Notable among the signatories are Raúl Grijalva and Mary Gay Scanlon, who have neither previously called for a ceasefire nor signed on to arecent ceasefire resolutionin the House of Representatives.
Displaced Palestinians arrive in a safer zone south of Gaza City on 12 November.Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
Biden has beenunwavering in his supportfor Israel since Hamas’s terrorist attack on 7 October killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals. But as the death toll in Gaza mounts the president, under pressure from his left flank, is now asking the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to restrain some tactics to easecivilian suffering.
Last week Israel agreed to put in placefour-hour daily humanitarian pausesin its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza but so far the White House has resisted demands for a ceasefire, contending that it would give Hamas time to regroup. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the national security council,told reporters on Tuesday: “I want to be clear, when we’re talking ceasefire versus pause, there’s a difference. So, we don’t support a ceasefire. We think that’s going to benefit Hamas.”
The issue has alsodivided Democratsin Washington, where the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, joined a “March for Israel” on the National Mall on Tuesday.
Wednesday’s letter reaffirms the 24 members’ “unequivocal condemnation” of the attacks on Israel on 7 October and notes that Israeli authorities so far have confirmed the identities of 516 civilians killed, including 31 children, and at least 20 children who have been abducted by Palestinian armed groups.
But the signatories say they have “dire concerns” about the scale and scope of Israel’s response in which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have now killed more than 11,078 Palestinians, nearly half of whom were children.
Citing UN figures, the letter says at least 4,500children have diedand at least 7,695 have sustained injuries in Gaza over the past 30 days. In addition, about 3,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 1,700 children, have been reported missing and are presumed to be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery. And during the same period Israeli forces or settlers have killed 51 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank.
“We are profoundly shocked by the grave violations of children’s rights in the context of armed conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the members write. “International norms require that all parties to an armed conflict protect children and prevent the commission of grave violations against them, including killing and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, recruitment and use of children, abduction of children, and denial of humanitarian access.”
The letter notes that nearly half the 2.2 million Palestinians living in Gaza are children. They are imperiled by Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure as well as Israel’s restrictions on food, water, fuel and other humanitarian assistance.
Internally displaced Palestinian children light a fire to boil a kettle after overnight rainstorms in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on 15 November.Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
The letter also commends White House efforts to expand humanitarian supplies but warns that these have had limited impact on the ground and risks undermining US credibility in the region. “We urge an immediate cessation of hostilities in order to stop the bombing and provide much-needed relief to Palestinian civilians.”
The members welcome Biden’s past remarksacknowledging US mistakesin the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC and thank him for calling for a humanitarian pause for the sake of aid and diplomacy.
“However, given the present lack of an apparent and clear strategic plan, we encourage a redoubling of efforts to achieve rapid de-escalation through a ceasefire and robust, regional engagement that includes international humanitarian organizations.
“We understand that the Administration has serious concerns regarding the objectives and consequences of a large-scale ground offensive, and we urge you to press this case directly.”
The letter is endorsed by organisations including MoveOn, Amnesty International, Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Churches for Middle East Peace, Oxfam America, Working Families Party, the Institute for Policy Studies’New Internationalism Projectand Jewish Voice for Peace Action.
Omar Plans Bill to Prevent Biden From Selling $320 Million of Bomb Kits to Israel
"It is an important statement that there are those in the U.S. who care about this issue and are not willing to simply stand by," said a former State Department official who resigned over continued arms transfers to Israel.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is reportedly planning to introduce legislation this week to block the Biden administration's proposed $320 million sale of bomb guidance kits to the Israeli government, which has dropped tens of thousands of tons of explosives on the besieged Gaza Strip in just over a month—obliterating the enclave's civilian infrastructure and killing more than 11,000 people.
HuffPostreportedMonday that Omar is expected to file a measure known as a "resolution of disapproval," which if passed would prevent the administration from transferring the military equipment to Israel, barring a veto from U.S. President Joe Biden.
Late last month, the Biden administrationnotifiedCongress of its intention to transfer Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies, kits that transform unguided bombs into GPS-guided weapons (SPICEstands forSmart, Precise Impact, and Cost Effective). The Biden administration has alsoproposeda waiver that would allow it to approve future weapons sales to Israel without notifying Congress.
Israel has been using the bomb kits—which are made by Rafael USA—during its assault on Gaza. Earlier this month, the Israeli military dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the Gaza city that's home to the territory's largest refugee camp, The New York Timesreported.
"The bombs are usually outfitted withguidance kitscalledJoint Direct Attack Munitions, turning them from so-called dumb bombs into precision, GPS-guided weapons," theTimesnoted.
Since the deadly Hamas-led attack of October 7, Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, the equivalent of two nuclear bombs, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
The Israeli government's indiscriminate bombing campaign and mass atrocities in Gaza have not stopped the Biden administration from backing Israel's military and pledgingunconditional support, despite growing warnings that such support is rendering the U.S.complicit in genocideand other war crimes.
Human Rights Watch hasdemanded an arms embargoon Israel and Palestinian armed groups, accusing both sides of war crimes.
Josh Paul, a former State Department official whoresignedlast month over continued U.S. arms transfers to Israel, applauded Omar's impending effort to block the sale of bomb kits in an interview withHuffPostwhile acknowledging that it's an "uphill battle."
"It is an important statement that there are those in the U.S. who care about this issue and are not willing to simply stand by," said Paul.
Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action, also welcomed Omar's planned legislation as "very good news."
Omar, the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is one of the few members of Congress who have vocally criticized the Biden administration for continuing to provide military assistance to Israel as it relentlessly bombards Gaza, killing thousands of children and displacing 70% of the enclave's population. The bombing campaign has killed one of every 200 people in Gaza,The Washington Postreported.
Last week, Omar expressed alarm about the Biden administration's push to circumvent congressional oversight of its arms transfers to Israel, which have thus far beenshrouded in secrecy.
"This is particularly concerning, given the wanton killing of civilians, and constant reports of war crimes and human rights abuses, likely using U.S. weapons," said Omar.
IOF target anyone trying to leave Al-Shifa Hospital, killing 30 so far
ByAl Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
Nov 15, 2023, 18:58
Israeli occupation forces are shooting to kill any unarmed Palestinian trying to exit Al-Shifa Medical Complex, resulting in the martyrdom of at least 30 Palestinians.
The government Media Office in Gaza announced that more than 30 unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) inAl-Shifa Hospital, as they opened fire on families who tried to leave the hospital.
The Office stressed that the occupation's aggression and assault on Al-Shifa Medical Complex, its departments, and everyone in it, including patients, displaced Palestinians, and the medical staff, amounts to yet another war crime committed by the Israeli occupation.
It is also important to underline that while Al-Shifa was getting invaded, the occupation also cut off all communications from the hospital. The communication blackout started at 1:00 pm today, on Wednesday, according to what was reported byAl Mayadeen’s correspondent.
The IOF have converted Al-Shifa Hospital into a military barracks, handcuffing a large number of its attending doctors and indiscriminately opening fire throughout the health facility as they storm patient wards without constraintsAl Mayadeen's correspondent reported earlier in the day.
Yesterday, theCenterforConstitutionalRightsfiled ahistoric federal lawsuitagainst President Biden, SecretaryofState Blinken, and SecretaryofDefense Austinforfailing to prevent and aiding and abetting the genocideofthe Palestinian people.
DCIP is the lead plaintiff, alongside Al-Haq, Palestinians in Gaza including our field researcher Mohammad Abu Rukbeh, and Palestinian-Americans in the United States.
Under both international and U.S. law, the Biden administration has the legal obligation to stop U.S. supportforthe genocide that Israeli forces are unleashing against the Palestinian people. Instead, they have repeatedly pledged unwavering supportforIsrael as Israeli forces target civilian infrastructure like hospitals, schools, bakeries, and water stations. At least 4,650 Palestinian children have been killed, and an additional 1,755 children are missing—mostofwhom are presumed dead under the rubble. The Biden administration must stop encouraging this genocide immediately.
Contact your memberofCongress today to say that they too must abide by their legal and moral obligation to stop U.S. supportforthe genocideofthe Palestinian people.
This lawsuit has already received major media coverage in Al Jazeera. the Intercept, the Guardian, Middle East Eye, and other publications. The Biden administration will be forced to respond soon, and it's crucial that we continue building pressureonCongress. Elected officials must answer the question: Are you with the genocide-supporting Biden administration, or against?
Israeli war crimes and propaganda follow US blueprint
Israel's war crimes in Gaza and the propaganda by which it justifies them are based on the weak—and incorrect—interpretations of the Geneva Conventions that the U.S. has relied on throughout its recent wars.
We have both been reporting on and protesting against U.S. war crimes for many years, and against identical crimes committed by U.S. allies and proxies like Israel and Saudi Arabia: illegal uses of military force to try to remove enemy governments or “regimes”; hostile military occupations; disproportionate military violence justified by claims of “terrorism;” the bombing and killing of civilians; and the mass destruction of whole cities.
Most Americans share a general aversion to war, but tend to accept this militarized foreign policy because we are tragically susceptible to propaganda, the machinery of public manipulation that works hand in hand with the machinery of killing to justify otherwise unthinkable horrors.
This process of “manufacturing consent” works in a number of ways. One of the most effective forms of propaganda is silence, simply not telling us, and certainly not showing us, what war is really doing to the people whose homes and communities have been turned into America’s latest battlefield.
The most devastating campaign the U.S. military has waged in recent yearsdroppedover 100,000 bombs and missiles onMosul in Iraq,Raqqa in Syria, and other areas occupied by ISIS or Da’esh. An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that more than40,000 civilianswere killed in Mosul, while Raqqa was even more totallydestroyed.
The shelling of Raqqa was the heaviest U.S. artillery bombardment since the Vietnam War, yet it was barely reported in the U.S. corporate media. A recentNew York Timesarticleabout the traumatic brain injuries and PTSD suffered by U.S. artillerymen operating 155 mm howitzers, which each fired up to 10,000 shells into Raqqa, was appropriately titledA Secret War, Strange New Wounds and Silence from the Pentagon.
Shrouding such mass death and destruction in secrecy is a remarkable achievement. When British playwright Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, in the midst of the Iraq War, he titled his Nobel speech “Art, Truth and Politics,” and used it to shine a light on this diabolical aspect of U.S. war-making.
After talking about the hundreds of thousands of killings in Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Nicaragua, Pinterasked: “Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes, they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy.”
“But you wouldn’t know it,” he went on.”It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
But the wars and the killing go on, day after day, year after year, out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. Did you know that the United States and its allies have dropped more than 350,000 bombs and missiles on 9 countries since 2001 (including14,000in the current war on Gaza)? That’s an average of44 airstrikes per day, day in, day out, for 22 years.
Israel, in its present war on Gaza, withchildrenmaking up more than 40% of the more than 11,000 people killed to date, would surely like to mimic the extraordinary U.S. ability to hide its brutality. But despite Israel’s efforts to impose a media blackout, the massacre is taking place in a small, enclosed, densely-populated urban area, often called an open-air prison, where the world can see a great deal more than usual of how it impacts real people.
Israel has killed a record number ofjournalistsin Gaza, and this appears to be a deliberate strategy, as when U.S. forcestargetedjournalists in Iraq. But we are still seeing horrifying video and photos of daily new atrocities: dead and wounded children; hospitals struggling to treat the injured; and desperate people fleeing from one place to another through the rubble of their destroyed homes.
Another reason this war is not so well hidden is because Israel is waging it, not the United States. The U.S. is supplying most of the weapons, has sent aircraft carriers to the region, anddispatchedU.S. Marine General James Glynn to provide tactical advice based on his experience conducting similar massacres inFallujahandMosulin Iraq. But Israeli leaders seem to have overestimated the extent to which the U.S. information warfare machine would shield them from public scrutiny and political accountability.
Unlike in Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa, people all over the world are seeing video of the unfolding catastrophe on their computers, phones and TVs. Netanyahu, Biden and thecorrupt“defense analysts” on cable TV are no longer the ones creating the narrative, as they try to tack self-serving narratives onto the horrifying reality we can all see for ourselves.
With the reality of war and genocide staring the world in the face, people everywhere are challenging the impunity with which Israel is systematically violating international humanitarian law.
Michael Crowley and Edward Wong havereportedin theNew York Timesthat Israeli officials are defending their actions in Gaza by pointing to U.S. war crimes, insisting that they are simply interpreting the laws of war the same way that the United States has interpreted them in Iraq and other U.S. war zones. They compare Gaza to Fallujah, Mosul and even Hiroshima.
But copying U.S. war crimes is precisely what makes Israel’s actions illegal. And it is the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable that has emboldened Israel to believe it too can kill with impunity.
The United States systematically violates the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force, manufacturing political justifications to suit each case and using its Security Council veto to evade international accountability. Its military lawyers employ unique, exceptional interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which the universal protections the Convention guarantees to civilians are treated as secondary to U.S. military objectives.
The United States fiercely resists the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), to ensure that its exceptional interpretations of international law are never subjected to impartial judicial scrutiny.
When the United States did allow the ICJ to rule on its war against Nicaragua in 1986, the ICJ ruled that its deployment of the “Contras” to invade and attack Nicaragua and its mining of Nicaragua’s ports wereacts of aggressionin violation of international law, and ordered the United States to pay war reparations to Nicaragua. When the United States declared that it would no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ and failed to pay up, Nicaragua asked the UN Security Council to enforce the reparations, but the U.S. vetoed the resolution.
Atrocities like Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the bombing of German and Japanese cities to “unhouse” the civilian population, as Winston Churchill called it, together with the horrors of Germany’s Nazi holocaust, led to the adoption of the new Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949, to protect civilians in war zones and under military occupation.
On the 50th anniversary of the Convention in 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is responsible for monitoring international compliance with the Geneva Conventions, conducted a survey to see how well people in different countries understood the protections the Convention provides.
They surveyed people in twelve countries that had been victims of war, in four countries (France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and in Switzerland where the ICRC is based. The ICRC published theresults of the surveyin 2000, in a report titled,People on War—Civilians in the Line of Fire.
The survey asked people to choose between a correct understanding of the Convention’s civilian protections and a watered-down interpretation of them that closely resembles that of U.S. and Israeli military lawyers.
The correct understanding was defined by a statement that combatants “must attack only other combatants and leave civilians alone.” The weaker, incorrect statement was that “combatants should avoid civilians as much as possible” as they conduct military operations.
Between 72 percent and 77 percent of the people in the other UNSC countries and Switzerland agreed with the correct statement, but the United States was an outlier, with only 52 percent agreeing. In fact 42 percent of Americans agreed with the weaker statement, twice as many as in the other countries. There were similar disparities between the United States and the others on questions about torture and the treatment of prisoners of war.
In U.S.-occupied Iraq, the United States’ exceptionally weak interpretations of the Geneva Conventions led to endless disputes with the ICRC and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which issued damning quarterly human rights reports. UNAMI consistently maintained that U.S. airstrikes in densely populated civilian areas were violations of international law.
For instance, its human rights report for the 2nd quarter of 2007documentedUNAMI’s investigations of 15 incidents in which U.S. occupation forces killed 103 Iraqi civilians, including 27 killed in airstrikes in Khalidiya, near Ramadi, on April 3, and 7 children killed in a helicopter attack on an elementary school in Diyala province on May 8th.
UNAMI demanded that “all credible allegations of unlawful killings by MNF (Multi-National Force) forces be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force.”
A footnote explained, “Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area.”
UNAMI also rejected U.S. claims that its widespread killing of civilians was the result of the Iraqi Resistance using civilians as “human shields,” another U.S. propaganda trope that Israel is mimicking today. Israeli accusations of human shielding are even more absurd in the densely populated, confined space of Gaza, where the whole world can see that it is Israel that is placing civilians in the line of fire as they desperately seek safety from Israeli bombardment.
Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are echoing around the world: through the halls of the United Nations; from the governments of traditionalU.S. allieslike France, Spain and Norway; from anewly unitedfront of previously divided Middle Eastern leaders; and in the streets of London and Washington. The world is withdrawing its consent for a genocidal “two-state solution” in which Israel and the United States are the only two states that can settle the fate of Palestine.
If U.S. and Israeli leaders are hoping that they can squeak through this crisis, and that the public’s habitually short attention span will wash away the world’s horror at the crimes we are all witnessing, that may be yet another serious misjudgment. As Hannah Arendtwrotein 1950 in the preface toThe Origins of Totalitarianism.
“We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain.”
Gaza’s children are living through a horror movie during the day and a nightmare after dark.
Gaza’s children did not choose this situation. It was imposed on them by Israel.
Gaza’s children did not choose death.
They have big dreams that they think about every day. They believe that their parents are superheroes who can make those dreams come true.
Their parents have told the children that dreams can be realized when they grow up.
But the reality – a reality imposed by Israel – is that so many children in Gaza do not grow up. They are killed before they can grow up.
The children of Gaza are experiencing the worst days of their lives. They know that Israeli warplanes are targeting them.
It is by no means the first time that children have been targeted. Children comprised alarge proportionof Gaza’s martyrs during a major Israeli attack in May 2021.
But the intensity of the current war is unprecedented.
The number of childrenconfirmedto have been killed is now approaching 5,000. As Gaza’s hospitals are being attacked and forced to close and the health ministry isunableto update casualty data – and huge numbers are trapped under rubble – the real figure for child deaths is far higher.
“Terror every day”
Some of those killed were newborn babies.
Is killing childhood in Gaza really the goal of Israel’s war?
Israel is displaying its inhumanity by robbing children of their right to live in peace.
Children fear the sound of missiles and explosions.
They are exhausted because they are deprived of sleep and rest.
They have to move with their parents from one place to another.
They hope to find safety. But there is none.
Sarah al-Saadi is aged 14. “This is not a war,” she said. “This is the extermination of children. How can the world look at the scenes of children under the rubble as if it is something normal?”
“No one feels for us,” she added. “I have not heard anyone saying, ‘Stop the war for the sake of Gaza.’ We live in terror every day. We are afraid of the sounds of missiles and the sounds of tank shells. They never stop.”
Sarah and her family have taken shelter in a school run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). They went there, she said, “to escape death.”
“We walked for a long distance under bombardment. They [the Israelis] showed no mercy or pity to the children.”
Sarah has talked to other children at the UNRWA school about her experiences.
“We all need to speak and be heard,” she said. “This is a very scary world. We are children. And like the other children of the world, we have the right to learn, the right to play and the right to live in peace.”
Is death approaching?
Many children have written their names on their hands and feet. They have done so to ensure that if they die, they will not die anonymously.
They will not be numbers.
Many children cried before writing their names. They felt that death was approaching them.
“I saw many videos of children who were torn to pieces,” said Reem Salama, 10. “Nobody knew who they were. I saw pictures of children writing their names on their hands. That’s why I sat in the schoolyard and wrote my name on my hands and feet. Other children came around and I wrote their names for them. I felt sad but this is life in Gaza.”
“Instead of learning, playing, watching TV, spending time at home, we are writing our names on our bodies,” she added. “We are afraid that we will die without anyone knowing about us.”
Adults are struggling to offer children comfort as Israel’s bombardment continues.
Khaleda Zakaria, 45, said, “This is a war against children. I cried so hard when I saw children writing their names on their hands and feet. Some of them asked me, ‘Does this mean we are going to die?’. I told them, ‘No, this is just a game.’”
Zakaria notes that problems associated with trauma – such as bed-wetting at night and trembling during the day – are widespread.
“The sounds of missiles frighten them a lot,” she said. “They experience fear and anxiety all the time. If a missile falls next to us, they cannot sleep at all during the night out of fear that someone will target them. I have five children and they are all living through the same terrible experience. I just wish the war would end and I often pray for that.”
Children are unable to attend classes and routines that give their lives some stability have collapsed.
“I used to complain about how I had to wake up early for school,” said Ahmad Abu al-Rous, 13. “I couldn’t wait until the weekend or until we had vacations. Now, I hope that school will start again. I miss my friends.”
“I miss my grandfather and my grandmother and other relatives,” he said. “I miss my home. We had to leave it because of the bombing. I am tired of sleeping in classrooms and searching for water for my family. I am tired of the sound of missiles. I am tired of everywhere being crowded. I hope the war stops. I hope that the world hears our voices.”
ANorwegian physician who has volunteered in Gaza for decades said Friday that Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, are complicit in Israel’s intensifying assault on the Palestinian enclave’s hospitals, which are overwhelmed with airstrike victims and displaced people seeking refuge.
In a video message posted to social media as Israeli forces bombarded al-Shifa—Gaza’s largest hospital—and other medical facilities, Dr. Mads Gilbert asked, “Can you hear the screams from innocent people, refugees sheltering, trying to find a safe place, being bombed by the Israeli attack forces this morning inside the hospital, hospitals that are the temples of humanity and protection?”
“When are you going to stop this?” Gilbert added, with audio of screams from Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital playing in the background. “You’re all complicit.”
Gilbert’s plea for immediate action from world leaders who are supporting and arming Israel’s military came as Israeli forces surrounded al-Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza, claiming that Hamas is using the facilities as command centers—an assertion that hospital directors have denied.
Israeli airstrikes and sniper fire on Gaza hospitals have forced thousands of people who were sheltering at the facilities to flee, but many others “remain trapped inside,” the U.K.-based humanitarian group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said Saturday.
The charity said it has heard “chilling testimony from inside Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa,” including reports that “the intensive care unit has been bombed and damaged.”
“Staff moving between buildings have been shot at and critically wounded,” said MAP, which is calling for a cease-fire. “Those who have tried to flee have come under fire, and lie dead or wounded in the street as rescue is impossible. With the mortuary shut down, a hundred bodies are piled up and cannot be buried.”
“Power has gone out, and staff are having to hand ventilate critically ill patients to keep them alive,” the group continued. “At least one patient in intensive care has already died. Babies in the neonatal intensive care unit which MAP has supported over many years are beginning to die from lack of oxygen. More will die soon unless the power supply is restored. Day after day, week after week, we have been warning of catastrophic consequences if world leaders fail to protect healthcare in Gaza. Our worst fears are coming true.”
Doctors Without Borders, which has been providing emergency assistance in the Gaza Strip, offered a similarly harrowing account.
“We are currently unable to contact any of our staff inside al-Shifa, and we are extremely concerned about the safety of patients and the medical staff,” the group said late Friday. “Patients are still in the hospital, some in critical condition and unable to move.”
Mohammed Obeid, a Doctors Without Borders physician at al-Shifa, said that “there is a patient who needs surgery. There is a patient who’s already asleep in our department. We cannot evacuate ourselves and [leave] these people inside. As a doctor, I swear to help the people who need help.”
Early Saturday, the group wrote on social media that its staff “are witnessing people being shot at as they attempt to flee the al-Shifa hospital.”
Israel's genocidal attacks, which are killing hundreds of Palestinians a day, including some 160 children, have expanded to shelling the remaining hospitals in Gaza.
By Chris Hedges/Original to ScheerPost
DOHA, Qatar: I am in the studio of Al Jazeera’s Arabic service watching a live feed from Gaza City. The Al Jazeera reporter in northern Gaza, because of the intense Israeli shelling, was forced to evacuate to southern Gaza. He left his camera behind. He trained it on Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex. It is night. Israeli tanks fire directly towards the hospital compound. Long horizontal red flashes. A deliberate attack on a hospital. A deliberate war crime. A deliberate massacre of the most helpless civilians, including the very sick and infants. Then the feed goes dead.
We sit in front of the monitors. We are silent. We know what this means. No power. No water. No internet. No medical supplies. Every infant in an incubator will die. Every dialysis patient will die. Everyone in the intensive care unit will die. Everyone who needs oxygen will die. Everyone who needs emergency surgery will die. And what will happen to the 50,000 people who, driven from their homes by the relentless bombing, have taken refuge on the hospital grounds? We know the answer to that as well. Many of them, too, will die.
There are no words to express what we are witnessing. In the five weeks of horror this is one of the pinnacles of horror. The indifference of Europe is bad enough. The active complicity by the United States is unfathomable. Nothing justifies this. Nothing. And Joe Biden will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide. May the ghosts of the thousands of children he has participated in murdering haunt him for the rest of his life.
Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper. They did not apply in Iraq. They do not apply in Gaza. We will pulverize your neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. We will wantonly murder your women, children, elderly and sick. We will set up blockades to engineer starvation and the spread of infectious diseases. You, the “lesser breeds” of the earth, do not matter. To us you are vermin to be extinguished. We have everything. If you try and take any of it away from us, we will kill you. And we will never be held accountable.
We are not hated for our values. We are hated because we have no values. We are hated because rules only apply to others. Not to us. We are hated because we have arrogated to ourselves the right to carry out indiscriminate slaughter. We are hated because we are heartless and cruel. We are hated because we are hypocrites, talking about protecting civilians, the rule of law and humanitarianism while extinguishing the lives of hundreds of people in Gaza a day, including 160 children.
Israel reacted with indignation and moral outrage when it was accused of bombing the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza, which left hundreds of dead. The bombing, Israel claimed, came from an errant rocket fired by Palestine Islamic Jihad. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that struck the hospital. Those of us who have covered Gaza have heard this Israel trope so many times it is risible. They always blame Hamas and the Palestinians for their war crimes, now attempting to argue that hospitals are Hamas command centers and therefore legitimate targets. They never provide evidence. The Israeli military and government lie like they breathe.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which has staff working in Al-Shifa, issued a statement saying patients, doctors and nurses are “trapped in hospitals under fire.” It called on the “Israeli government to cease this unrelenting assault on Gaza’s health system.”
“Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment. Al-Shifa hospital complex, the biggest health facility where MSF staff are still working, has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries,” the statement read. “The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped. MSF teams and hundreds of patients are still inside Al-Shifa hospital. MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients.”
Three other hospitals in northern Gaza and Gaza City are encircled by Israeli forces and tanks, in what a doctor told Al Jazeera was a “day of war against hospitals.” The Indonesian Hospital has reportedly also lost power. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 20 of 36 hospitals in Gaza no longer function.
Israel and Washington’s cynicism is breathtaking. There are no differences in intent. Washington only wants it done quickly. Humanitarian corridors? Pauses in the shelling? These are vehicles to facilitate the total depopulation of northern Gaza. The handful of aid trucks allowed through the border at Rafah with Egypt? A public relations gimmick. There is only one goal – kill, kill, kill. The faster the better. All Biden officials talk about is what comes next once Israel has finished its decimation of Gaza. They know Israel’s slaughter will not end until Gazans are living in the open without shelter in the southern part of the strip and dying because of a lack of food, water and medical care.
Gaza before Israel’s ground incursion was one of the most densely populated spots on the planet. Imagine what will happen with 1.1 million Gazans from the north piled on top of over 1 million in the south. Imagine what will take place when infectious diseases such as cholera become an epidemic. Imagine the ravages of starvation. The pressure will build to do something. And that something, Israel hopes, will be to push the Palestinians over the border into the Sinai in Egypt. Once there, they will never return. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza will be complete. Its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank will begin.
That is Israel’s demented dream. To achieve it, they will make Gaza uninhabitable.
Ask yourself, if you were a Palestinian in Gaza and had access to a weapon what would you do? If Israel killed your family, how would you react? Why would you care about international or humanitarian law when you know it only applies to the oppressed, not the oppressors? If terror is the only language Israel uses to communicate, the only language it apparently understands, wouldn’t you speak back with terror?
Israel’s orgy of death will not crush Hamas. Hamas is an idea. This idea is fed on the blood of martyrs. Israel is giving Hamas an abundant supply.
More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel as countries around the world withdraw their ambassadors from Israel. But when the one Palestinian member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, speaks in support of the Palestinian people, she is censured by the House of Representatives. Brian Becker is joined by Vijay Prashad, the Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Chief Editor of LeftWord Books, and a prolific author, most recently publishing a new book with Noam Chomsky called “The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.” He also spoke at the biggest march for Palestine in U.S. history last week, the November 4th National March on Washington.
First of all, I want to say that I am so grateful for the outpouring of activism by our members to stop the violence in Israel and Gaza. While we mourn the horrific death toll, which now exceeds 10,000 lost lives – over 4,000 of them children– I am also inspired by your activism. We are up against powerful political headwinds, but we’re making slow but sure progress in gaining support for a ceasefire.
Today I’m writing to you about an upcoming Senate vote on the bombs, shells and other weapons that are causing so much death and destruction in Gaza.Many of those weapons are stamped with “Made in the USA” on them. In fact, they ought to also say “Paid for by U.S. taxpayers.”It’s chilling to recognize that you and I are paying for many of the bombs causing the destruction we’re seeing in Gaza.
As if annual U.S. military support to Israel of $3.8 Billion dollars isn’t enough, Congress is now considering a supplemental funding bill for$14.5 billion dollarsin military hardware to Israel. Given how our weapons are already being used in widespread and evident war crimes it would be unconscionable to approve this additional money.[1]
To make matters worse, the Biden administration has requested an unprecedented emergency “waiver” for military aid to Israel that reduces Congressional oversight and public transparency about aid transfers to Israel. At a time when thousands of civilians are being killed, many likely by U.S.-provided weapons, we need more transparency and oversight, not less.
Here’s what I’m asking you to do: 1. Call the Congressional switchboard at1-202-224-3121 2. Ask to be connected to one of your Senator’s offices. (Afterwards, you can repeat for your other Senator). 3. Once connected, say:
“Hello, my name is (your name) and I am a voting constituent from (city). I am calling today because I am horrified by the destruction and loss of life in Gaza. I oppose U.S. military support for the violations of human rights by Israel. I urge the Senator to oppose additional guns, artillery shells, and bombs to Israel which would mean that the U.S. is aiding and abetting these human rights violations. I oppose the president’s effort to take away Congressional oversight authority for military aid to Israel. Given the violations happening it’s critical that there be transparency about these arms transfers. I urge my Senator to vote no on the supplemental spending bill for military aid to Israel.”
Make no mistake, the aid the U.S. sends to Israel is lethal aid.The weapons the U.S. sends include rifles that can be used by right-wing militias in the West Bank to attack Palestinian civilians.[2] Indeed, there’s been a large spike in violence in the West Bank since October 7. Other weapons include artillery shells which a recent Oxfam report warned are “a weapon of choice in Israel’s ground operation in Gaza, which will cause untold harm to civilians as it intensifies further.”[3]These unguided weapons are inherently indiscriminate with wide area impacts.
Many of the bombs dropped on Gaza come from the U.S. as well, along with the fighter jets dropping them.Whether the bombs are technically “precision-guided munitions” or not, when they hit hospitals, mosques, apartment blocks, refugee camps, and schools, they end up killing civilians. That’s why groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are calling for “a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict.”[4]
It’s important to note that none of the bombing going on is bringing the hostages back, or actually making Israelis safer.Many of the Israeli families of the hostages are asking for the focus to be put on the release of the hostages and oppose a ground invasion that could lead to the hostages being killed. Many support a prisoner swap to release the hostages.[5]
We have our work cut out for us! We need to move key leaders in the Senate onto our side in opposing U.S. complicity in the disastrous war.That can in turn put pressure on the administration – and Israel. We need to keep pushing for a ceasefire. Once the war ends, we can breathe a small sigh of relief. But we must then work to end U.S. support and complicity in the decades-long occupation of the Palestinian people once and for all. No rest for the peacemakers!
Thank you for all that you are doing for peace right now.
Rashida Tlaib is a Democratic politician who was born in Detroit to working-class Palestinian immigrants.
On Tuesday night, the United States House of Representatives approved a motion of no confidence against Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib due to her criticism of Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip.
Introduced by Republican Representative Rich McCormick, the resolution was approved by 234 votes in favor and 188 votes against. Among the representatives who voted in favor of censuring Palestinian-American Congresswoman Tlaib were 22 Democratic legislators.
The resolution accused Tlaib of "promoting false narratives about the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and calling for the destruction of the State of Israel."
Criticism of Tlaib from U.S. lawmakers increased when she posted a video that included the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." In response to their criticisms, Tlaib published a message in which she stated the following:
"It's a shame my colleagues are more focused on silencing me than they are on saving lives, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000. Many of them have shown me that Palestinian lives simply do not matter to them, but I still do not police their rhetoric or actions. Rather than acknowledge the voice and perspective of the only Palestinian American in Congress, my colleagues have resorted to distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies. I have repeatedly denounced the horrific targeting and killing of civilians by Hamas and the Israeli government and have mourned the Israeli and Palestinian lives lost," she said.
"Meanwhile, each day that passes without a ceasefire brings more death and destruction upon innocent civilians, who have nowhere safe to go, drawing outrage and condemnation from the American people and the international community. A majority of Americans support a ceasefire, but this Congress isn't listening to their voices," Tlaib added.
"I will continue to call for a mutual ceasefire, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, and for every American to be brought home. I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, centers peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence."
Rashida Tlaib is a 47-year-old attorney who has served as a three-term Democrat congresswoman for the state of Michigan.
"She is the first woman of Palestinian descent in Congress and, alongside Ilhan Oman, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress," Al Jazeera recalled.
"Tlaib and Omar are a member of 'The Squad', an informal group of progressive members of Congress that includes Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez among others. She was born in Detroit to working-class Palestinian immigrants and still has family in the West Bank occupied by Israel," it added.
By Deisy Francis Mexidor on November 5, 2023 in Washington DC
photo: Adrian A.
More than 300 thousand people gathered yesterday in Washington DC to send a strong message to the US government that they stand with the people of Palestine.
The march was the largest in the history of the United States in support of Palestine and was the culmination of weeks of protests in cities across the country with a clear indication that the Biden administration does not represent the sentiments of the people when it comes to Palestine.
Freedom Plaza, photo: Deisy Francis Mexidor
People made great efforts to come from all over this expansive country to join DC residents at Freedom Plaza to express their rejection of the Israeli war of genocide in Gaza which could not happen without the military and financial support of the US government. All of which comes from funds that are badly need for infrastructure projects and social programs for the millions of poor people existing here in the richest country in the world.
There were some who recalled that they could feel a new energy which was reminiscent of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War.
Outraged by the crime committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories in the face of the passivity of the world and the silence of the hegemonic media, which hardly dedicates any space to these protests, there can be no doubt that a huge community is building around the condemnation.
Men, women, youth, seniors, children, groups and individuals joined the chorus of voices that on Saturday afternoon expressed loudly the feelings of an important segment of the population of this country.
“We do not want the murder of women and children, nor the colonization of the Palestinian. We are witnessing the total disregard for life with these genocidal crimes of Israel, it is something completely inhumane, “ said Morgan Henderson, who lives in the capital, to Prensa Latina.
For her part, Sapphire Ahmed, from New York, said she attended the rally because it is paradoxical that “we don’t have medical care, we don’t have enough money for housing or for our children, or for higher education; however, millions of dollars go to Zionist Israel”.
The massive demonstration descended like a torrent through the different arteries of the city converging onto Pennsylvania not far from the White House.
Among flags, slogans and expressions of rejection of the genocide, there were also some reminders to President Joe Biden that they will remember the role that his administration played leading up to his re election campaign in 2024.
The protest was a culmination of other significant recent protests against war including Jewish peace groups who occupied the congressional office building on Capitol Hill demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, and other actions were also reported in different metropolitan areas of the country over the last few days.
In addition, members of the CodePink organization interrupted Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech several times as he attempted to justify the request for millions of dollars in funding for the wars in Israel and Ukraine before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Michigan Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only member of the U.S. Congress of Palestinian origin, has accused Biden of supporting genocide in Palestine.
Tlaib warned that Americans will remember when the current occupant of the executive mansion is up for re-election next year how he responded to the war between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
In a video posted on X, Tlaib urged Biden to call for a cease-fire in the conflict, something he and his administration has rejected to stay in line with Israel.
“Sir. President, the American people are not with you on this one,” Tlaib stated in the video, adding, “We will remember you in 2024.” For some analysts, Biden’s ironclad backing of the Zionist regime could prove a stumbling block on his path to a second term in the context of his shaky approval rating on a number of issues, including inflation and violence.
50,000 demonstrate for Gaza in San Francisco. photo: Bill Hackwell
At this point Biden’s unpopularity at 57 percent and there are grim predictions of an eventual tie between the Democrat and Republican Donald Trump, despite his whole mountain of legal troubles.
The show of support for Palestine in the United States, that included a coinciding march and rally of over 50,000 people in San Francisco, was part of the world day of support for the cause of that people, held in Chile, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Brazil and Argentina, among other countries.
“This massive turnout is a resounding rejection of the policies of the Biden administration, which is shamefully taking part in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Without the support of the US government, Israel’s terrible crimes would not be possible,” said ANSWER Coalition Executive Director Brian Becker.
Including World BEYOND War, UNA, Madison Friends, Madison Rafah Sister City Project, WILPF, Palestine Partners, Veterans for Peace, Peace Action, Interfaith Peace Working Group, Unitarian Universalists, Poor People's Campaign, Family Farm Defenders, as part of La Via Campesino, Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes, Madison Democratic Socialists of America, Building Unity, and more....
Dr. Gerald Horne is a prolific author and historian. He joins us from Houston to discuss U.S. and Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and the impact on international and domestic affairs.
The subjugation and annihilation of innocent civilians, bombed into the dust of "collateral damage," does not support America, Israel or the West's claim for moral high ground and a path to peace.
Wounded Palestinians arrive to al-Shifa hospital, following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)
On Tuesday, October 31, 2023, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombed a Palestinian refugee camp with 100,000 inhabitants, producing a hellscape of casualties, 50 dead, 150 injured, with buildings in collapse at the periphery of massive bomb crater. The stated public intention was to kill a single Hamas commander.
There are two million Palestinians warehoused in the sliver of land 26 miles long and between 2-7 miles wide, a containment camp holding indigenous peoples of the region hostage, known as the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which is estimated to have at least 40,000 members. If the ration of 50 -1 holds up, that is 50 Palestinians will die for every Hamas member killed -- then every single Palestinian in Gaza would be killed. This is not without possibility, perhaps the colonizers’ plan.
A refugee camp was bombed again by Israel yesterday, killing 80 Gazans, and, I suppose, another Hamas commander.
There is no refuge in Gaza refugee camps. Gaza is a walled-in slaughterhouse of broken people living on wretched, borrowed time, without food, water, electricity, sanitation, without hope to be spared pain and intense human suffering, until being relieved of their consciousness by sudden death descending into the Gaza maelstrom as a spectral Grim Reaper.
The broken bodies of at least 300 Gazans, pulverized by massive bombs, are being pulled each day from the wreckage of their land.
The further prosecution of this war is counterproductive to the security and survival of Israel and its citizens, who live in an increasingly hostile environment as the images of the plight of Gazans are broadcast to billions world-wide and to hundreds of millions of enraged Muslims and Arabs in the region.
To watch this relentless bombing, and to maintain silence reduces the experience to war porn, and desensitizes and dehumanizes the viewer in vicarious complicity.
The objectification and dehumanization of the Palestinians, the overt racism and the obtuseness which accompanies the mounting death toll, marks a victory for propagandists, but a constitutes a moral calamity for Israel, the United States and all other complicit countries.
Our lack of moral code, empathy, inhuman response and willingness to escalate the destruction of innocent people as collateral damage is short sighted and dangerous to say the least. We are inviting objectification, dehumanization and destruction to our own doors.
The murderous actions of Israel, supported by the United States in Gaza, will come home. Each new atrocity visited upon Gazans threatens the long-time survival and the security interests of Israel and the United States. These murderous actions, informed by a murderous consciousness, bring the world to the edge of a major war.
Vengeance will lead to vengeance. Depravity breeds depravity. There is ultimate danger swirling in the human dust that used to be the wretched refugee camp of Jabalia in Gaza. It is dark, magical thinking which fails to comprehend the mortal consequences for the people of Israel and of the United States who support the extermination of the Palestinians.
This has not stopped the media and political leaders who are ignorantly salivating over the promise of retaliation, domination, an opportunity for destruction.
President Biden and congressional leaders of both political parties from readying legislation to intensify the attacks on Gazans.
U.S. taxpayers’ dollars, if they leave the country at all, should go for diplomacy, for humanitarian relief, and to help restore and rehumanize the victims of violence on all sides, including the Israeli families who suffered from the horrific criminal attacks of October 7th by Hamas which resulted in over 1,400 deaths.
Instead, our government brings fire to a tinderbox.
It is not just that this war must stop and must never start again. The moment requires new thinking to deal with the preconditions of war, the age-old challenges to peace in the Middle East and globally.
This cannot happen with current leaders who are filled with megalomaniacal fantasies, as they breath in the Apocalypse and exhale death and destruction.
The decision to create a new day, averting ultimate disaster, awaits the people of Israel. We in the United States also face an urgent consideration:
Do our leaders, in our name, escalate or deescalate?
Do we/they pursue restorative justice or retribution?
Can we continue to maintain the life of our own society while our government uses our tax dollars to seed death world-wide?
As we choose, so chooses the world. I choose empathy. I choose to be a bridge builder. I choose to lead pathways to peace. It is time to reengage with our own humanity.
It is only in re-sensitizing and in embracing our own humanity that we will ever be able to bring healing to traumatized communities, which ever side of the fence they dwell.
UNICEF has decried the Israel-Hamas war, saying its worst fears about the staggering child death toll are being realized
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated its call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, saying the conflict is killing thousands of kids in Gaza and putting many more at risk from the violence and a water crisis.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children,”UNICEF spokesman James Eldertold reporterson Tuesday in Geneva,“It’s a living hell for everyone else.”He noted that more than 3,450 children in the Palestinian enclave have already been killed, and the death toll rises significantly every day.
Elder made his comments as Israel escalated its ground offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks that killed an estimated 1,400 people on October 7. Gaza’s water system also has been crippled by the conflict, contributing to an overall death toll of more than 8,000 in the territory.
“The threats to children go beyond bombs and mortars,” Elder said. He added that Gaza’s water production capacity has been cut to 5% of its normal level, putting more than 1 million children at risk of dying from dehydration. Many children have been sickened by drinking salty water out of desperation.
Elder noted that even before the latest war between Israel and Hamas, more than three-fourths of Gaza’s children were identified as needing mental health support because of the trauma they had faced.“When the fighting stops, the cost to children and their communities will be borne out for generations to come,”he said.
With Gaza’s children“living through a nightmare,”the UNICEF spokesman said, Israel must end its siege of the territory. He called for all access crossings into Gaza to be open, allowing for the safe passage of food, water, fuel, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid.“And if there is no ceasefire – no water, no medicine, and no release of abducted children – then we hurtle toward even greater horrors afflicting innocent children.”
Israel’s government has blasted the UN, arguing that the body has not sufficiently condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. West Jerusalem’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, announced on Monday that members of his delegation would respond by donningyellow stars, alluding to the labels that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.“From this day on, each time you look at me, you will remember what staying silent in the face of evil means,”he said in a speech to the UN Security Council.
Between Saturday, October 7 and Wednesday, October 25, at least 6,500 Palestinians (including 2,700 children), 1,400 Israelis, and 30 Americans have been killed. Many more have been wounded and traumatized, and 1.4 million people in Gaza have been displaced with their homes destroyed.
Israel’s government has been dropping around a thousand bombs a day on 2.2 million trapped Palestinians in Gaza—over half of whom are children. This includes white phosphorus bombs, an illegal incendiary weapon that burns through skin down to the bone.
This collective punishment of Palestinian civilians is a moral outrage and an egregious violation of humanitarian law.
The answer to war crimes is not war crimes.
Saying that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza and calling Palestinians “animals,” Israeli politicians have openly broadcast their collective punishment of civilians. The Israeli government has cut off water, food, fuel, medicine, and electricity to Gaza, while refusing to accept Palestinian Americans from Gaza or to allow the delivery of adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Unfortunately, many U.S. political leaders are silent and refuse to call for an end to the violence.Instead they want to send massive amounts of weapons to Israel’s military, while dehumanizing and disregarding Palestinian civilians.The Biden administration, most of Congress, and U.S. State Department officials refuse to pursue de-escalation and facilitate a ceasefire.
But morally courageous Democrats just introduced theCeasefire Now Resolutionin Congress.
The resolution urges the Biden administration to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine, to send humanitarian aid and assistance to people under siege and trapped in Gaza, and to save as many lives as possible in the region.
In announcing theCeasefire Now Resolution, Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), André Carson (IN-07), Summer Lee (PA-12), and Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03), alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Nydia Velázquez (NY-07) are some of the only members of Congress calling for a ceasefire. Since the resolution's introduction, six more Democrats have co-sponsored it.
The hate and racist rhetoric coming out of Washington D.C. is pushing incendiary, hateful, and dehumanizing anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric that must be called out. A 6-year-old boy—Wadea Al-Fayoume—was stabbed to death in Chicago for being Palestinian American.
In recent days, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in cities across the U.S. for a ceasefire. Hundreds of Jewish Americans have been arrested while protesting to end this unfolding genocide against Palestinians. We must keep showing massive public support for ending the violence.
Please sign onto theCeasefire Now Resolutionif you agree: The U.S. government must urgently save Palestinian, Israeli, and American civilian lives. We must bring Americans in Israel and occupied Palestine safely home, and push Israel’s government to stop the siege on Gaza and ensure humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In endorsing the resolution, Stefanie Fox, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said:“We call on every member of Congress who values the preciousness of human life to join them in demanding a ceasefire now.”
Another endorser of the resolution, Rachel Gilmer, Co-Director of the Dream Defenders, said:"Every member of congress who does not sign onto this resolution is complicit in genocide. The question is simple: will you support a ceasefire and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza or the continued massacre of innocent people?”
The only Palestinian American in Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib said that her colleagues are trying to silence her voice“because I want the violence to stop, no matter whether it’s toward Israelis or toward Palestinians.”She said:"I cannot believe I have to beg our country to value every human life, no matter their faith or ethnicity. We cannot lose sight of the humanity in each other."
Right now the focus is on ending the violence and saving as many lives as possible. In the long-term, we must keep building the movement to end the Israeli government’s apartheid system against Palestinians. Everyone in the region deserves to live safely, in freedom and with equal rights. No one is safe with the current status quo.
Grand Central Station in New York City occupied by anti-genocide protesters to End Violence in Palestine and Israel
Oct 29, 2023
Continuing the tradition of massive civil disobedience, 1,500+ demonstrators mobilized by Jewish Voice for Peace filled the terminal for a sit-in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, with 348+ arrested. Police closed the station on Oct 27, 2023
Charging the US and Israel with Genocide in the International Criminal Court
The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), which founded the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002.
The US opposes the work of the ICC in relation to its own citizens as Washington still has not signed the Rome Statute and has even established a "Hague invasion clause" which allows the US military to liberate citizens of US or its allies if they are held by the ICC.
The US government has said that it will not cooperate with the ICC and has threatened retaliatory steps against ICC staff and member countries should the court investigate or charge the US or allied country citizens. National Security Advisor John Bolton indicated that theUS would also take action against the ICC if court investigations concerned Israel. No change in policy has been announced.
We’re watching a genocide unfold in real time. In just three weeks, the Israeli military has killed over 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza, among them over 3,000 children. That’s more than the annual number of children killed in conflicts across the globe since 2019.
As the Israeli military plunged Gaza into darkness on Friday — cutting off all internet access and cell service in the besieged enclave — thousands of Jews and allies held a historic sit-in that shut down New York City’s iconic Grand Central Station to say, “Ceasefire now.” “Let Gaza live.” Banners covered the train schedules, reading “Never again for anyone” and “Palestinians should be free.”
Thousands chanted, 500 participated in civil disobedience, and over 350 people were arrested, including rabbis, elected officials, elders, and celebrities. This sit-in, which was organized by JVP, was the largest act of civil disobedience in New York City since the Iraq War…
Gaza’s utter devastation and masses of civilians facing death from bombardment and deliberate starvation already presents the world with a spectacle of mass murder of unspeakable proportions, writes Gareth Porter.
Israel’s systematic and wanton destruction of Gaza has raised long-standing issues of its political and legal culpability over the treatment of Palestinians to a new level of seriousness.
It obviously poses familiar issues of Israeli war crimes, and Amnesty International had already clearly designated it as such after just the first week. The human rights organization also asked the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to “urgently expedite” its investigation of the aims of all parties.
But this Israeli campaign now poses the even graver issue of genocide of Palestinians as a nation. The utter devastation of Gaza and the vast numbers of civilians facing death from bombardment and from deliberately engineered starvation and sickness already presents the world with a spectacle of mass murder of unspeakable proportions.
The Israelis should face accountability for its crimes.
A panel of nine distinguished independent experts on human rights who investigated the Gaza emergency for the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has just warned that the Israeli campaign of destruction of Gaza poses “a risk of genocide against the Palestinian people.”
And there is a long history of genocidal thinking and action behind this “genocidal moment”.It should be recalled that during the previous Gaza crisis in 2014, an equally extremist Israeli government openly threatened genocide against the Palestinians.
Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked declared on Facebook that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” andsaid:
“All of them are enemy fighters and all of them are bleeding from the head. Now it also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow in the footsteps of their sons, there is nothing fair about that. They have to go, and so does the physical house where they raised the snake. Otherwise, more small snakes will grow there.”
That same year, the Likud deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset, MosheFeiglin said:
“Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever. Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel.”
The present Israeli government — whose extremist right-wing politics resemble those of the 2014 government — has made no effort to hide its political, genocidal contempt for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
Nor has it hidden the proximate objective of the present campaign, which is to eliminate Palestinians entirely from Gaza.
Al Aqsa Flood
Interior view of the Al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. (Aseel zm, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The official reason for the murderous new Israeli campaign against Gaza Palestinians was Hamas’s “Al Aqsa Flood” operation of Oct. 7, in which Palestinian commandos invaded kibbutzim near Gaza for the first time, taking the Israeli security system completely by surprise and inflicting a humiliating defeat on the government in the eyes of its own citizens.
Hamas said it was retaliating for hundreds of Israeli settlers who three days earlier had stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem/al-Quds, the third holiest site in Islam. Ultranationalist Jews want to rebuild the Roman-era Jewish temple, destroyed around 70 AD, on the mosque’s site.
The Hamas operation clearly resulted in the deliberate killing of innocent civilians by Hamas. But surviving residents say it was the police— not the Hamas raiders — who destroyed many houses to ensure that everyone inside, both Hamas gunmen and hostages, would be killed, according to a standard Israeli procedure.
So the Israeli claim that Hamas killed more than 1,400 civilians in the operation must now be regarded with skepticism as part of the preparation for the massive murder to be inflicted on innocent Palestinian civilians in the weeks that followed.
The Israeli initial strategy for accomplishing its objective in Gaza appeared to be to carry out such heavy bombing on civilian targets throughout Gaza that the Palestinian population would be forced to leave Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah exit.
But that plan quickly ran into a serious obstacle that the Israelis apparently had not anticipated: the Egyptians have adamantly refused to open the exit for a Palestinian exodus.
The primary reason for this Egyptian resistance to the Israeli plan is that appearing to collaborate with an Israeli policy of pushing the entire Palestinian population out of Gaza would be extremely unpopular with the Egyptian public, which passionately supports the Palestinian cause.
Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was extremely harsh in his denunciation of the Israeli Gaza strategy in his joint press appearance with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Oct. 15, declaring that the Israeli air war “went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, el-Sisi was insisting that the Israelis allow the trucks containing international assistance for displaced Palestinian families to enter the war zone, while Israel continued to delayed approval for any humanitarian assistance day after day and to allow only a trickle to enter Gaza.
At the same time, the Israeli government took the position that Palestinian civilians have no legal right to protection whatsoever, on the ground that Hamas is a terrorist organization.That was the import of remarks by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in an interview with Britain’s Sky News Oct. 12.
When asked by a journalist what Israel planned to do about the Palestinian civilians in Gaza hospitals after it had cut off all fuel supplies on which the hospitals depended for power, Bennet shouted angrily, “Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians?What is wrong with you?Have you not seen what’s happened?We’re fighting Nazis.”
No Legal Limits
By reducing the issue to Israel vs. “Nazis”, the Israeli government has sought to reject its legal and moral responsibility for humane treatment of civilians, or to abide by international law regarding its conduct of a war.
Seizing on the Hamas raid on the kibbutzim, the Israelis hoped to convince their key foreign allies— the United States and the major European states — that the Palestinian civilian population has forfeited all right to protection from Israeli bombing.
Thus it has made no commitment whatever to any such legal or ethical limits on its war in Gaza, which should have been recognized immediately as a threat to the entire civilian population there.
The Israeli government has not uttered the phrase “collective punishment” in this phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Nevertheless Israel has carried out systematic punitive home demolitions as a means of punishing entire communities because of individuals who were involved in resistance activities.
That has long been the central Israeli method for dealing with Palestinian resistance activities, as Human Rights Watch concluded last February.
Israeli leaders have presented their current war of destruction as a further application of the same principle, aimed at punishing the Palestinian population in Gaza for the military operation by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Blaming that operation on the entire Palestinian population on Oct. 12, the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, declared,
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. … They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
When a reporter asked Herzog if he was arguing that the failure of the civilian population to overthrow the Hamas government made them “legitimate targets”, he answered, “No, I didn’t say that.” But then he clearly contradicted the denial by arguing, “When you have a missile in your goddam kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself?”
There has never been any evidence, of course, that Hamas missiles have been hidden in civilian dwellings, nor would it make any military sense for Hamas to do so under the present circumstances.
The constant Israeli invocation of “the right to defend ourselves” is obviously paired silently with the unspoken belief in the right to inflict suffering and even genocide on the Palestinians. Israel has also been dropping leaflets in the northern Gaza Strip warning the population.
“Whoever chooses not to leave north Gaza to the south of Wadi Gaza might be identified as an accomplice in a terrorist organization”clearly implies that they are indeed being treated as legitimate targets for bombing as punishment for the actions of Hamas.
No less than the former attorney general of Israel has declared unequivocally that in order to destroy Hamas, “you have to destroy Gaza, because almost every building there, is a stronghold of Hamas.”
Targeting hospitals in Gaza poses additional political risks of provoking media and even potentially U.S. government censure, so Israel has turned to an obvious disinformation operation to smooth the way.
When a missile struck the parking lot of the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, causing casualties among some of the more than 3,000 people who had sought refuge in that area, the IDF quickly blamed the explosion on a Hamas rocket that it claimed had misfired.
The IDF cited a video supposedly showing the misfired rocket exploding at the Baptist hospital, as well as what it called an intercepted conversation between a “former Hamas operative” and a Gaza resident that acknowledging that a misfired Hamas rocket had landed on the hospital grounds.
Counting on the US
Joe Biden as vice president visiting Israel March 2016. (U.S. Embassy, Tel Aviv)
The U.S. National Security Council announced its official position that Israel was innocent of the rocket attack, and the intelligence community obliged by expressing “high confidence” that it was an errant Palestinian rocket that had caused the blast.
But then the Israeli case began to fall apart. BBC reported they could find no cemetery anywhere near the location from which the IDF claimed the errant rocket had been fired.
And TheNew York Times reported that its own more thorough study of the relevant videos did not support the U.S.-Israeli case.Instead it showed that the Palestinian rocket that misfired was “most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital,” because it had “actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away.”
Nevertheless, Israel could count on the backing of the Biden administration, which has provided political-diplomatic cover for Israel to carry out its scorched earth policy in Gaza since before the visit of President Joe Biden in mid-October.
Biden and Blinken were reduced to the role ofvirtual appendages to the Israel government mouthing the Israeli propaganda slogan that Israel has “the right to defend itself”, while adding a reference to the “laws of war” to which the visitors from Washington should have known perfectly well the Israelis were not paying the least attention.
That Biden administration’s craven support for the Israeli destruction of Gaza makes the U.S. complicit not only in Israeli crimes in Gaza but in the crime of genocide.
Although the genocide issue has not surfaced yet in the international politics of the Palestine issue, there is now good reason to expect that it will be raised both by Arab governments and by human rights organizations in the coming months.
This is certainly the historical moment to press the case against Israel genocide as called for by the Genocide Convention itself.The legal requirement for such an accusation is not proof of the mass murder of millions as was carried out by Hitler.
It is sufficient to prove that a state has the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…” and that it is
“[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The war imposed on the Gaza population by Israel obviously qualifies under those two crucial provisions of the convention.
The Genocide Convention also provides for finding that a state is guilty of the crime of “complicity” in genocide, which accurately describes the behavior of the U.S. government under the Biden administration.
Again it is not necessary to show that the complicity was motivated by the desire for the genocide in question but only that genocide could be a foreseeable result of theactions in question.
The legal question of genocide will ultimately be decided by the International Criminal Court or a national court with universal jurisdiction, such as Spanish courts have assumed in the past. The ICC would no doubt also investigate Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7. The Observer State of Palestine is a member of the ICC and the prosecutor of that court has an open file on Israel and Palestine.
Both the United States and Israel are parties to the Genocide Convention, which makes a campaign to hold them accountable for their respective roles in the present genocide even more of an urgent moral obligation for people and organizations of good will.
All settler colonial projects, including Israel, reach a point when they embrace wholesale slaughter and genocide to eradicate a native population that refuses to capitulate.
With Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killing at least twenty Palestinian journalists—and the Biden administration working to muzzle others—Big Tech is quietly coordinating with Tel Aviv to muzzle Palestinian media outfits.
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinian journalists on October 25 in one of the deadliest days for local reporters since the military’s bombing campaign began nearly three weeks before. As the hours passed, footage appeared showing the moment Ramallah-based journalist Mohammed Farra learned that his wife and children were all killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza’s Khan Younes neighborhood.
Similarly heart-rending scenes would play out more than once over the course of the day. Elsewhere in the besieged coastal enclave, an Israeli airstrike killed the wife, son, daughter and infant grandson of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh.
On October 12, Veterans For Peace issued this statement about the conflict between Hamas and Israel, in which we condemned the horrific violence on both sides, particularly the killing of civilians. We added our voice to the many calls for a ceasefire and negotiations toward a political solution because there is no military one.
Since then, conditions have worsened – terribly. If a ceasefire isn’t declared, the killing and wounding in Gaza will increase dramatically, given announced plans to intensify bombing and conduct what is likely to be a months-long ground invasion.
Marjorie Cohn, VFP Advisory Board member and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, joined many others in defining what’s happening in Gaza as “genocide,” and the U.S. role as “complicity in genocide.”
We take those terms very seriously.
On October 20, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that 4,127 people, including 1,661 children have been killed and 13,162 people have been injured. Since then, 400 people were killed in 24 hours on October 22.
The only thing worse to read are the statements of Israeli officials ordering much more of the same. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared, “This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” Major General Gassan Alian added, “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” And Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops: “I have released all the restraints…”
Members of Veterans For Peace know what happens when those are the “rules of engagement” and what a “free fire zone” is.
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, warned of a new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and called for an immediate ceasefire.” She added, Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a “complete siege” on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off.
How could anyone, at the very least, not support a ceasefire…Mr. President?
Biden ordered our UN ambassador to veto the UN resolution calling for a ‘humanitarian pause,’ so he can have more time to let American on-the-ground diplomacy “play out.” The tragedy and hypocrisy in that statement are monstrous, but surely delight the weapons makers who profit savagely from the billions of dollars our taxes buy for Israel year in and year out.
Our government, with many billions of our tax dollars, has fanned the flames beneath the pressure cooker of occupation for decades. We cannot pretend ignorance. One of our members saw a tragic similarity between what he witnessed in Palestine and what he did as an occupier in Iraq.
VFP urges our members and supporters as emphatically as we can: Take action NOW – no matter how large or small – but do it now. We must do everything we can to prevent even greater disaster!
Join in a local protest or organize one yourself. Certainly picket, and think seriously about occupying local offices of Members of Congress who do not support HR 786 for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid. Tell your friends what’s happening. Write a letter to the editor. But do it now!
Without a ceasefire, this war, like all wars, will dangerously escalate. The U.S. has sent aircraft carrier battle groups into the eastern Mediterranean and more troops into neighboring countries; Israel has bombed two airports in Syria; Shia militias have attacked U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.
To American troops deployed to the Middle East: follow your conscience. Remember that what you do as a member of the United States military will be with you for the rest of your life. We in Veterans For Peace have learned from our experiences with war and death to be life affirming. Join us for peace.
Israeli Bombs Have Destroyed Over 52,000 Homes, Leaving 1 Million Homeless
Beit Hanoun is vanishing, air strike after air strike, house after house. All or most of the residents of the town in the northeastern Gaza Strip have fled in recent days, after the Israeli army peremptorily ordered them to leave their homes and head south. And it might take years until they are able to return – or they might never do so, if Israel establishes a “buffer zone” in the north of the Strip.
The air strikes that began after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 have already destroyed or severely damaged 52,000 homes, according to the Euro-Med Monitor. According to the Geneva-based human rights center, before the air strikes the number of housing units in the northern districts of Gaza was about 260,000. More than a quarter of them have been affected by air strikes, and 20 percent of the houses are no longer habitable. Beit Hanoun has been the hardest hit, with about 60% of its buildings destroyed or damaged. These numbers will only grow in the coming years, together with the expected destruction that will come to the south of the Strip as well.
An estimated one million Palestinians are currently homeless. The spokesperson of the Israeli military, Daniel Hagari, admitted that air raids on Gaza are taking place at a level “not seen in decades.”
On Thursday, six U.N. special rapporteurs accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity in Gaza:
“There are no justifications for these crimes, and we are horrified by the lack of action by the international community,” they wrote in a statement.
The Netanyahu government and the military leadership are saying that they will change the face of Gaza forever and that they will fight Hamas until it is wiped out in order to release the 203 Israeli and foreign hostages taken on October 7 by the Islamic movement. On Friday, through the mediation of Qatar, the armed wing of Hamas released two women, Judith and Natalie Raanan, a mother and daughter with dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, on humanitarian grounds. The two women were handed over to the International Red Cross. After arriving in Egypt, they were expected to be back in Israel the next day.
This development will not have the slightest effect on the Israeli military offensives on the horizon. On the ground around Gaza, everything suggests that the invasion will come in a matter of days. This is also indirectly confirmed by the decision of Israel and the United States not to take part in the “peace summit” in Egypt. The Netanyahu government, riding on the strong support at all levels that Joe Biden assured them of on Wednesday, has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, as Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah would like, both of whom are concerned about the possibility that the war will end with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their countries, not only from Gaza but also from the West Bank. There are many future scenarios to consider.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that achieving Israel’s goals will be neither quick nor easy:
“We will overthrow the Hamas organization. We will destroy its military and governmental infrastructure. It is a phase that will not be easy. It will have a cost,” he told members of a parliamentary committee.
In support of the Gaza war, Joe Biden is expected to send an emergency request to Congress to approve new funding to support Israel and Ukraine. The Jewish state will get $14 billion in U.S. arms and aid. During his address to the nation, the U.S. president addressed “other hostile actors in the region,” who, he said, needed to know that Israel was “stronger than ever” and thus “prevent this conflict from spreading.”
But his unconditional support for Israel is beginning to generate discontent in the Arab capitals allied with the U.S. and those that have normalized relations with Tel Aviv. In the days after October 7, the Emirates and Bahrain had both condemned Hamas. But then, according to Arab analysts, Biden’s words categorically ruling out any Israeli responsibility in the explosion that devastated Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday – which left 471 Palestinians dead, according to the Health Ministry – were poorly received in Abu Dhabi and Manama. From that point on, the two countries called for a ceasefire and condemned Israeli policies toward Palestinians. Their positions were also influenced by the wave of outrage across the region and protests in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and other countries.
The “concern” for Palestinian civilians expressed by Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken is failing to reassure Arab leaders allied with Washington in the face of images from Gaza that show two million Palestinians subjected to continuous bombardment by the Israeli air force, which has left 4,137 dead and some 13,000 wounded according to Health Ministry figures.
The stories of despair and terror that Gaza civilians are managing to convey to the outside world are giving rise to fear and frustration among other Palestinians and Arabs, and among those in the rest of the world who are following the fate of so many innocent people. The humanitarian emergency is more and more serious: finding clean water and food is difficult, and some hospitals have stopped functioning. In others – as Al Jazeera reported on Friday – they are disinfecting surgical instruments with vinegar. Everything is lacking, starting with the diesel fuel needed to keep autonomous electricity generators running.
The smell of death wafts across the streets everywhere, unbearable – the stench of the corpses left under the rubble of houses and buildings, at least 1,400 according to health authorities. The Palestinian Red Crescent denounced on Friday that it had received a threat from Israel that it would bomb the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which houses more than 400 patients and some 12,000 displaced people. By Friday night, there had been no denial from the Jewish state.
Israel did admit to causing severe damage to the buildings of the St. Porphyry Orthodox Church in Gaza city, resulting in the death and injury of several people. Nonetheless, the IDF military spokesperson denied that the church had been the target of the airstrike, which he said had targeted a “Hamas command center” in the vicinity. The Orthodox Church reported 18 dead Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims who believed they had found safe haven at St. Porphyry.
Meanwhile, the much-needed humanitarian and hospital aid remained stuck at Gaza’s gates on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing. Joe Biden himself promised on Friday that they would enter on Friday or Saturday. Finally, on Saturday evening, it was confirmed that the first 20 trucks had been allowed to enter the strip.
A Textbook Case of Genocide
Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?
Palestinians look for survivors after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12th, 2023. AP Photo/Hatem Ali
ON FRIDAY, Oct 9, Israel ordered the besieged population in the northern half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south, warning that it would soon intensify its attack on the Strip’s upper half. The order has left more than a million people, half of whom are children, frantically attempting to flee amidcontinuingairstrikes, in a walled enclave where no destination is safe. As Palestinian journalist Ruwaida Kamal Amerwrotetoday from Gaza, “refugees from the north are already arriving in Khan Younis, where the missiles never stop and we’re running out of food, water, and power.” The UN haswarnedthat the flight of people from the northern part of Gaza to the south will create “devastating humanitarian consequences” and will “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.” Over the last week, Israel’s violence against Gaza has killed more than 1,800 Palestinians, injured thousands, and displaced more than 400,000 within the strip. And yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahupromisedtoday that what we have seen is “only the beginning.”
Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentiallyexpel them altogetherinto Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism andJewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost theIsraeli arms industry, theweaponizationof antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeliapartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.
Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” asnotedin the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallantdeclaredit in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation.
The UN Genocide Convention listsfive actsthat fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by itsown account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the USdropped on all of Afghanistanduring record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used includedphosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—thelongestin modern history, inclear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, andbombing their hospitals.
It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on thepro-Netanyahu Channel 14called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, publisheda reportabout left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent onIsraeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.
Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions. In the early 20th century, for example, German colonial occupiers perpetrated a genocide in response to an uprising by the Indigenous Herero and Nama populations in southwest Africa. In 1904, General Lothar von Trotha, the German military commander, issued an “extermination order,” justified by the rationale of a “race war.” By 1908, the German authorities had murdered 10,000 Nama, and had achieved their stated goal of “destroying the Herero,” killing 65,000 Herero, 80% of the population. Gallant’s orders on October 9th were no less explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.
The number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza Strip surpassed 6,000 people as Gaza's Ministry of Health announced the death of 700 people in just 24 hours.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health announces the death of 700 people in 24 hours, says Israel committed47 massacrestargeting family homes in Rafah, Beit Lahia, al-Faluja, Khan Younis, and Bureij and Shati refugee camps.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “Attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Israel calls for his immediate resignation.
UN reports an estimated1.4m Palestiniansalready internally displaced from their homes.
Saudi Foreign Minister: “[Israel] claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, including women, children and the elderly.”
One-third of hospitals in Gaza and nearly two-thirds of primary health care clinics have shut down due to damage or lack of fuel, UN warns.
Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25, is the second Palestinian prisoner to die inside Israeli prison on Tuesday.
Haaretzreports the comments of released Israeli captive Yocheved Lifshitz to the media about Hamas treating her “well” has damaged the Israeli narrative about the war.
Hezbollah announced that four of its fighters were killed during military operations in the south of Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah meets top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders
More than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza Strip
The death toll of Palestinians killed in Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza Strip surpassed 6,000 people amid urgent calls for a ceasefire and the flow of fuel and humanitarian aid.
On Tuesday evening, Gaza’s Ministry of Health announced the death of 700 people in 24 hours, the majority of them killed in air strikes targeting family homes in Rafah, Beit Lahia, al-Faluga, Khan Yunis, and Buriej and Shati refugee camps.
The ministry said Israel committed47 massacresagainst Palestinian families.
Israel has carpet bombed houses and buildings in Gaza Strip, flattening entire residential blocks, burying hundreds of Palestinians under the rubble and debris.
Rescue teams, which lack the proper and sufficient equipment to find missed people, are struggling to pull survivors from under the debris amid Israel’s continued bombardment and electricity outage at night.
One rescue member toldAl-Arabiyathat they could hear people’s screams from under the crushed concrete of the bombed buildings but couldn’t reach them.
Since Israel’s war on Gaza Strip, at least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed, including2,360 children. Nearly 18,000 were injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, 98 were killed in Israeli raids. The figure is expected to rise as paramedics find bodies under the rubble.
Wafa news agencyreported that 16 people were killed when a number of homes were targeted in Tal al-Hawa neighbouhood, southeast of Gaza City.
Also, homes were hit in Jabalia and Nuseirat refugee camps and Qizan al-Najjar area in Khan Yunis.
A Palestinian woman was killed, and others were injured when an Israeli raid was launched at the home of Amer family in Khan Yunis camp, south of Gaza Strip.
Several Palestinians were killed and injured in al-Najma neighbourhood in the city of Rafah, when Abu Saud family’s home was bombed. They were transferred to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
Al-Halis family home was also bombed, and nine people were killed and 15 injured, including women and children. Al-Halis’ residential building is located near Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.
Wafa reported that Israeli war jets destroyed the homes in Bir al-Naja area in the northern Gaza Strip and in the al-Nasr neighborhood, killing and wounding scores of people.
The house of Abu Ghaben family in Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, was also bombed in an air strike.
Israel’s air strikes on houses in the east of Gaza City, namely east of al-Zaytoun and al-Shujaiya neighbourhoods, engulfed the area with a belt of heavy fires, Wafa reported.
“Attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”: UN secretary general says
On Tuesday, the UN chief Antonio Guterres renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza Strip, and said that the international law was violated by Israel and the Hamas movement.
Hamas’s attack on settlements outside the Gaza Strip beginning on October 7 left reportedly 1,405 Israeli dead and thousands injured, although the exact cause of all those deaths remain unclear.
Guterres said during a UN Security Council that Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and asked for civilians to be protected as the flames of war could engulf the region.
“It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres said.
“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”
“But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said.
Guterres added that “protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself.”
Israel has ordered the evacuation of nearly 1.1m Palestinians to the south of Gaza Valley two weeks ago.
An estimated1.4m Palestiniansare already internally displaced from their homes since the Israeli bombardment began on Gaza Strip, according to OCHA.
Guterres’ statement infuriated Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan, who demanded theimmediate resignationof the UN chief.
“His statement that ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder,” Erdan wrote on X.
“It’s truly sad that the head of an organisation that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views.”
Erdan, who brought with him relatives of Israeli captives to the Security Council meeting hosted by Brazil, called off a scheduled meeting with Guterres on Tuesday.
Arab foreign ministers of Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia denounced at the UN the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza Strip and demanded a ceasefire.
Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Foreign Minister, said Israel had targeted facilities, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
“They have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, including women, children and the elderly. They have injured thousands of civilians,” bin Farhan said.
“The failure of the international community, to this very day, to end this collective punishment by the Israeli occupation forces against the residents of Gaza, and their attempts to forcibly displace them, will not bring us any closer to security and stability,” he added.
Hospitals in Gaza Strip have been warning of fuel shortages which would result in electricity outage and the shutdown of vital facilities.
However, some of these hospitals had already ceased to operate.
On Tuesday night, theUN said“over one-third of hospitals in Gaza (12 of 35) and nearly two-thirds of primary health care clinics (46 of 72) have shut down due to damage from hostilities or lack of fuel.”
Second Palestinian prisoner dies in hospital as West Bank death toll reaches104
Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25, became the second Palestinian prisoner to die inside Israeli prison on Tuesday, two days after he was detained by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian resistance movement, the Islamic Jihad, accused Israeli authorities of “executing” Hamdan, as part of the “brutal war against our people in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside the occupation prisons.”
On Monday, Omar Daraghmeh, a 58-year-old Palestinian prisoner was also announced dead inside the Israeli prison at Megiddo prison.
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission for ex-Prisoner’s Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club group said that Hamdan’ death is the second case of its kind in less than 24 hours.
“The martyrdom of prisoner Arafat Yasser Hamdan, 25 years old, from the town of Beit Sira, Ramallah District [in the occupied West Bank], in Ofer Prison,” they announced in a joint statement.
Hamadan was arrested on October 22 as Israeli forces launched a mass arrest raids in several cities and town in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.
“The occupation began a systematic assassination of prisoners,” the Commission and Prisoners’ Club said.
On Wednesday, six Palestinian were killed in the occupied West Bank, bringing the death toll since October 7 to 104 Palestinians.
An Israeli drone launched two missiles on a crowd in the vicinity of the cemetery of Jenin refugee camp, killing four people.
They were named as Mohammed Qadri al-Sabah, Mahmoud al-Fayed, and Mohammed Abu Qatna. Eid Nabil Qasim Mari, a 15-year-old youth, succumbed to his wound later,Wafa reported.
Hamza Sayel Taha, 19, was killed in Qalqilya, and Ahmed Ghaleb Mutair was killed in Qalandiya, during Israeli forces raids, who arrested 72 Palestinians in several towns in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Captive testimony ‘harmed Israeli hasbara’
The testimony given to the media by Israeli captive Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was released by Hamas on Monday evening, left many Israeli officials and media pundits “shocked,” according to areport byHaaretz.
Lifshitz said that Hamas fighters “took care” of them, let them access medical care, and made sure toilets were clean.
“They were friendly in their way. We ate the same food they ate, white cheese and cucumber – that was a meal for a whole day,” Lifshitz has said in her media appearance after being released.
Haaretzreports that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office and the Hostage and Missing Families Forum were caught off-guard by Lifshitz’s media conference.
“Lifshitz’s statements about the humane treatment of the hostages at the hands of the Hamas terrorists harmed Israeli hasbara,” a source involved in Israel’s wartime public diplomacy efforts told the Israeli newspaper on the condition of anonymity.
“It would have been appropriate at the very least to make it clear to Lifshitz or her family members that messages in this spirit serve the enemy at a sensitive time,” the source continued.
Lifshitz’s family said that she was not briefed by government officials on what to say in the media conference, but that they were asked not to mention being treated well while in captivity. Lifshitz’s family denied the request, according toHaaretz, and encouraged Yocheved to speak freely.
Hezbollah chief meets top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders
On Wednesday, the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, announced that four of its fighters were killed during military operations in the south of Lebanon.
Israeli forces said that it targeted six units in the past 24 hours that attempted to cross the fence to north of the occupied Palestine.
Hezbollah has been targeting several Israeli military bases with anti-tank missiles, while Israel launched an artillery and drone bombardments into southern Lebanon.
On Tuesday evening, Hamas armed wing,al-Qassam Brigades, said that a special maritime force clashes with Israeli forces at the Zikim military base, south of the city of Ashkelon.
A statement by Hezbollah movement said that the movement Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, met Saleh Al-Arouri, the Head of Hamas Political Bureau, and Ziad Nakhalah, Islamic Jihad’s Secretary-General.
“The recent events in Gaza Strip were assessed since the beginning of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the developments that followed at every level, as well as the ongoing confrontations on the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine,” thestatementsaid.
“An assessment was made of the positions taken internationally and regionally and what the parties of the resistance axis must do at this sensitive stage to achieve a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine,” it added.
With a ground invasion looming, Israel is threatening atrocities on an even larger scale, all while espousing rhetoric that calls for ethnic cleansing or even genocide.
An Israeli think tank with ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a report on October 17 promoting the "unique and rare opportunity" for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.”
After this article was originally published, the Israeli outlet Calcalistreportedon a separate plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza that is being circulated by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry headed by Gila Gamliel. The leaked document was reportedly created for an organization called “The Unit for Settlement – Gaza Strip” and was not meant for the public.
In the plan being proposed by the Intelligence Ministry, Palestinians in Gaza would be displaced from Gaza to the northern Egyptian Sinai peninsula. In the report, the ministry described different options for what comes after an invasion of Gaza and the option deemed as “liable to provide positive and long-lasting strategic results” was the transfer of Gaza residents to Sinai. The move entails three steps: the creation of tent cities southwest of the Gaza Strip; the construction of a humanitarian corridor to “assist the residents”; and finally, the building of cities in northern Sinai. In parallel, a “sterile zone”, several kilometers wide, would be established within Egypt, south of the Israeli border, “so that the evacuated residents would not be able to return”.
In addition, similar to the plan described in the original story below, the document calls for cooperation with other countries, in fact “as many as possible” so that they may “absorb” the Palestinians who have been uprooted from Gaza. Among the countries mentioned as possible sites for Palestinians from Gaza are Canada, European countries such as Greece and Spain, and North African countries.
Original article
The Hamas attack on Israeli towns surrounding Gaza on October 7 has provided a pretext for an unprecedented, genocidal revenge campaign by Israel involving the massacre of now nearly 5,000 Palestinians, including over 2,000 children – and that may only be the beginning. Now, an Israeli think tank with ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promoting plans for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
On October 17, theMisgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategypublishedaposition paperadvocating for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.” The report advocates exploiting the current moment to accomplish a long-held Zionist goal of moving Palestinians off the land of historic Palestine. The report’s subtitle makes it clear: “There is at the moment a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government.”
The Misgav Institute is headed by former Netanyahu National Security AdvisorMeir Ben Shabbat, who remains influential in Israeli security circles. The Institute’s former chairpersons and founding associatesincludeYoaz Hendel(chair 2012-19), a right-centrist who was Minister of Communications intermittently in the years 2020-22;Moshe Yaalon, former Defense Minister (note that both Hendel and Yaalon have become opposed to Netanyahu in the recent years); Moshe Arens, also former Defense Minister — and other top political personas.
The main arguments of the report, which the Institute highlighted on social media upon the report’s release, are translated as follows:
There is a need for an immediate, viable plan for the resettlement and economic rehabilitation of the entire Arab population in the Gaza Strip, which sits well with the geopolitical interests of Israel, Egypt, U.S.A. and Saudi Arabia.
In 2017 it was reported that in Egypt there were 10 million available apartment units, of which half were built and half under construction. For example, in two of the biggest Cairo satellite cities, “October 6” and “Ramadan 10” there is an immense number of built and empty apartments under governmental and private ownership as well as empty lots for building that would in total suffice the housing of about 6 million residents.
The average cost of a three-room apartment of 95 square meters for an average Gaza family of 5.14 people in one of the two mentioned cities stands at $19,000. In calculating the total population that resides in the Gaza Strip, which stands between 1.4-2.2 million people, it is possible to assess that the amount that would need to be transferred to Egypt in order to finance would be around $5 to 8 billion.
An encouraging injection to the Egyptian economy at this magnitude would provide an enormous and immediate advantage to [Egyptian President] El-Sisi’s regime. Such money sums, compared to the Israeli economy, are miniscule. The investment of a mere few billions of dollars (even if it is $20 or 30 billion) in order to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and viable solution.
There is no doubt that in order for this plan to be enacted, many conditions need to exist in parallel. At the moment, these conditions exist, and it is unclear when such an opportunity will arise again, if at all.
It appears that this ethnic-cleansing plan is based on a similar logic to that of the “Abraham Accords,” involving the infusion of massive sums towards despotic regimes to write off the Palestinian issue. But this time, it is not just about slow annexation and bantustanization through “economic peace” — but advocating for the complete population transfer of Palestinians from Gaza.
Previous calls for ethnic cleansing
It is not the first time that suggestions for a full ethnic cleansing have appeared from Israeli analysts or even politicians. In the midst of the 2014 Gaza onslaught, Moshe Feiglin, who was then part of Likud and deputy chair of the Knesset, sent Netanyahu a public, 7-point proposal for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He repeated the genocidal advocacy in 2018. Feiglin is now a libertarian politician. In a recent interview on Channel 14, Feiglin called for a “Dresden” on Gaza (referring to the WW2 firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, killing some 25,000 people) — “a storm of fire on all of Gaza!” he proclaimed, demanding to “not leave stone on stone” and emphasizing “total fire!” and “the end of ends!”
The Misgav Institute’s thinking has also been reflected in the Israeli intelligentsia. In 2004, respected Israeli historianBenny Morris, who is a self-proclaimed leftist, shocked many by bemoaning the fact that Ben Gurion did not “finish the job” and carry out the full ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, saying it would have led to less conflict in the ensuing decades. But he also said that a “transfer and expulsion” policy is only a question of time, and timing. Morris argued that in “normal” times, such policies may be immoral — but in “apocalyptic circumstances,” they may be both moral, “reasonable,” and “even essential.” From his interview inHaaretz:
“If you are asking me whether I support the transfer and expulsion of the Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and perhaps even from Galilee and the Triangle, I say not at this moment. I am not willing to be a partner to that act. In the present circumstances it is neither moral nor realistic. The world would not allow it, the Arab world would not allow it, it would destroy the Jewish society from within. But I am ready to tell you that in other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions.”
Thus, the Misgav report would seem not only to be arguing that to forcibly displace the Palestinian population from Gaza but that, similar to the conditions that Morris laid out, this is a historic opportunity to do it.
Israeli support
Since October 7, calls for flattening Gaza have been rampant among the Israeli leadership and widely espoused across the population. On October 12, Israeli Channel 12 published areportabout how the desire to ethnically cleanse Gaza has taken hold in Israeli popular culture:
“People from the political left and center have called for the flattening of Gaza this week. A very short post fantasizing about a nature party that would take place on what was Gaza land received 100 thousand likes and 60 thousand shares”. The young Tel-Aviv woman who posted on Instagram had only 700 followers, but then the post “exploded”. She claims to be a centrist who “has always sanctified human rights, compassion is the first emotion that is activated in me”, she says. “I do not want to kill Gazan babies, I never hated Arabs and it’s not like I started hating them this week. But after what happened, I say to the Gaza residents – your babies are your problem”.
Meanwhile, while the world’s eyes are on Gaza, ethnic cleansing is also being realized in the West Bank by Israeli settlers and soldiers. The terrorizing of mostly rural Palestinian communities in the West Bank had resulted in the uprooting of several communities before October 7 but has accelerated greatly since, with some 545 Palestinians forcibly displaced from at least 13 communities since October 7, according to information from the West Bank Protection Consortium (WBPC) and Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din (cited by Al Jazeera). The murderous settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have gotten relatively little attention, like the murder of four Palestinians in Qusra on October 11 and then themurder of a Palestinian father and his sonat the funeral. The number of killed Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7 is nearing 100 — in two weeks — an unfathomable pace.
Thus, these times are exceptionally dangerous for Palestinians. The Hamas attack seems to have reignited long-standing Zionist wishes, and now some want to exploit this public mood in support of a massive ethnic cleansing campaign. It doesn’t mean that it will happen all at once, but as mentioned, in some places, it has already begun.
The Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine (WCJP) organized a rally and march on October 21, drawing thousands to the streets of downtown Milwaukee in a show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
The peaceful demonstration began at Red Arrow Park and concluded at “The Calling” sculpture along the Lakefront, a prominent landmark in the city.
The event was marked by an outpouring of support from the local community, with participants ranging from students to elderly residents, coming together to express their concern for the ongoing humanitarian issues in Gaza.
“Thousands marched in Milwaukee for a ceasefire on Gaza and a liberated Palestine. In the most segregated metro area in the U.S. almost every demographic, religion, and ethnicity was there – a true representation of the entire city calling for a free Palestine.”– Jewish Voice for Peace
Speakers at the rally highlighted the humanitarian challenges faced by Gazans, emphasizing the importance of international understanding and support. The march was not just a call for peace, but also a plea for justice and human rights for Palestinians.
The newly formed WCJP coalition has been an active voice championing the cause of Palestinians, and promoting a fair and balanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group’s mission has been to educate the public about the history and realities of Palestine, and to advocate for the rights and dignity of its people.
“This event is not just for Palestinians but for all of us. We need to stand up for what is right and make our voices heard,” said a participant in the Milwaukee march, who declined to give their name.
A second aid convoy destined for desperate Palestinian civilians reached Gaza on October 22, as Israel widened its attacks to include targets in Syria and the occupied West Bank.
Relief workers said that far more aid was needed to address the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where half the territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes.
The U.N. humanitarian agency said the first convoy on October 21 carried about 4% of an average day’s imports before the war and “a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege.”
For days, Israel has been on the verge of launching a ground offensive in Gaza following the October 7 rampage by Hamas through a series of Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, waiting for the command to cross.
Fears of a widening war have grown as Israeli warplanes continue to targets across Gaza, two airports in Syria, and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants.
Photos by Kamal ShkoukaniThousands marched in solidarity for Palestinian freedom in downtown Milwaukee, demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza.The newly formed Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine (WCJP) marched in protest on Sunday Oct 22...
October 24 Israel/Palestine Oxfam humanitarian update
On Saturday, the first convoys of humanitarian aid entered Gaza through the crossing at Rafah. In total, fewer than sixty truckloads of food, water, and medical supplies have been admitted – equivalent to about 3% of the daily average volume of commodities that Gaza received before October 7. Even if future convoys are larger and the flow of aid increases, it will be difficult to deliver this assistance so long as people seeking and delivering assistance (including Oxfam staff) believe that nowhere is safe from attack. Moreover, the situation will continue to deteriorate regardless of humanitarian assistance quantities so long as basic services such as water, electricity, and fuel remain cut off.
Fuel is indispensable for pumping water from wells, treating it, and distributing it to homes, businesses, and care facilities. Hospitals, schools, shelters, and homes are facing severe water shortages. Even where water is available, the lack of fuel renders most water untreated and unsafe for human consumption. Fuel shortages are also endangering the lives of injured civilians in hospitals, which require fuel to ensure that live-saving medical equipment—such as ventilators and incubators—continue to function. Physicians are performing surgeries lit only by mobile phones in the absence of power. Basic services should be restored immediately as a life-saving measure for civilians in Gaza.
Despite the challenges facing a large-scale humanitarian response, Oxfam is expanding its activities together with partners in a select number of shelters. We are now reaching more than 600 households with hygiene kits and cash and plan to distribute to vulnerable families approximately 1,000 food kits that we have managed to procure.
We would greatly appreciate if you could take all possible steps to secure unimpeded humanitarian access and an end to hostilities.
What follows below is Oxfam’s planned update from Israel/Palestine on 24 October. Please contact me or Jake Batinga ([email protected]) if you have any questions about the current situation or Oxfam’s work.
Israel:
At least 1400 Israelis and foreign nationals, including at least 27 Americans, were killed and at least 3400 people have been injured. Four hostages have been released, including two elderly Israelis on October 22 and two Americans on October 20. Upwards of 200 Israelis and foreign nationals, some of them elderly people and children, remain in Hamas custody. Oxfam reaffirms that hostage-taking is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and calls for the immediate release of all civilians detained.
Gaza:
Over 5,087 Palestinians have been killed, including 2,055 children.Around 15,273 people have been injured (3983 children). Around 1,500 additional people, including 830 children, have been reported missing and are likely under the rubble.
On October 13, at midnight, 1.1 million people in northern Gaza were ordered to evacuate including those sheltering in UN facilities, schools and hospitals. Heavy bombardment continued as people fled.At least 1.4 million Palestinians have become displaced from their homes in Gaza.
Overcrowding of UNRWA’s designated emergency shelters in the central and southern areas have become a major concern. Many shelters that were designed to host 1,500-2,000 people are now hosting approximately 4,400. The most crowded shelter (Khan Younis Training Center) is currently hosting about 21,000 displaced people.
Two out of the 20 trucks that entered Gaza on 21 October via the Rafah crossing carried 44,000 units of bottled water supplied by UNICEF, which is enough for only 22,000 people for one day. A limited number of additional units of bottled water entered on 22 October.Gaza’s population lacks clean drinking water and sanitation services. Restoring basic functions of the water and sanitation systems will not be possible without fuel.
All 6 wastewater treatment plants are non-operational due to lack of fuel and electricity. According to reports, there is already 130,000 m3 of untreated wastewater and major leaks in sewage networks. There is little to no water for 3500 inpatients in 35 hospitals and 400,000 IDPs in 160 schools at immediate risk. Solid waste collection and transfer to landfills have been put on hold, solid waste has been accumulating in temporary locations and in the streets, posing health and environmental hazards.
Evacuation orders have been issued to multiple hospitals. However, hospitals are unable to evacuate for several reasons including risk to life of patients, no fuel or safe transport mechanism, continued airstrikes and bombardment. Acute shortage of fuel is seriously affecting the most critical functions at all hospitals and the ability of ambulances to respond. Fuel depletion risks the lives of over 1000 patients dependent on dialysis, as well as patients in intensive care, those requiring surgery, infants in neonatal incubators, and women giving birth.
Due to the shortage of flour and fuel, bakeries are unable to meet local demand for fresh bread and are at risk of shutting down. The only operating flour mill cannot process wheat due to electrical power outages. The electricity blackout has disrupted food security by affecting refrigeration, crop irrigation, and crop incubation devices.In total, 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are urgently in need of food assistance.
The West Bank:
Violent confrontations have erupted across cities within the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).At least 95 Palestinians have been killed, and 1734 have been injured—including 1226 children.
Israeli forces have erected cement blocks in Palestinian communities to prevent access to different neighborhoods. These communities are under severe, Israeli-imposed restrictions on their freedom of movement.
Several Palestinian communities have been attacked by Israeli settlers. The Israeli government announced that it no longer has the resources to stop these attacks.
Oxfam is calling for:
Respect for international humanitarian law. We are deeply dismayed by the unprecedented violence against Israeli civilians on October 7 and since. Attacks that deliberately target civilians are never justifiable. The government of Israel’s decision to cut off the flow of food, fuel, electricity, and water to the Palestinian population of Gaza is also legally impermissible and a form of collective punishment.
Release of hostages. The abduction of civilians is a grave violation of international humanitarian law. Civilians being held by Palestinian armed groups must be swiftly and unconditionally released.
An immediate ceasefire. Ongoing fighting is unlikely to deliver real, sustainable to security to Israelis or Palestinians – but it is sure to cause untold suffering for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel is entitled to defend its people against armed attacks after the most deadly day in its history. It also has a duty to ensure the safety of people under occupation. The cycle of violence must end.
Humanitarian aid and basic services for those most in need. It is impossible for agencies like Oxfam to restart humanitarian operations in the face of bombs, shells, rockets, and bullets. The cutoff of basic services like fuel and electricity serves as a double-blow, hurting Palestinian civilians directly and undermining the ability of aid organizations to help them.
On Saturday, the first convoys of humanitarian aid entered Gaza through the crossing at Rafah. In total, fewer than sixty truckloads of food, water, and medical supplies have been admitted – equivalent to about 3% of the daily average volume of commodities that Gaza received before October 7. Even if future convoys are larger and the flow of aid increases, it will be difficult to deliver this assistance so long as people seeking and delivering assistance (including Oxfam staff) believe that nowhere is safe from attack. Moreover, the situation will continue to deteriorate regardless of humanitarian assistance quantities so long as basic services such as water, electricity, and fuel remain cut off.
Fuel is indispensable for pumping water from wells, treating it, and distributing it to homes, businesses, and care facilities. Hospitals, schools, shelters, and homes are facing severe water shortages. Even where water is available, the lack of fuel renders most water untreated and unsafe for human consumption. Fuel shortages are also endangering the lives of injured civilians in hospitals, which require fuel to ensure that live-saving medical equipment—such as ventilators and incubators—continue to function. Physicians are performing surgeries lit only by mobile phones in the absence of power. Basic services should be restored immediately as a life-saving measure for civilians in Gaza.
Despite the challenges facing a large-scale humanitarian response, Oxfam is expanding its activities together with partners in a select number of shelters. We are now reaching more than 600 households with hygiene kits and cash and plan to distribute to vulnerable families approximately 1,000 food kits that we have managed to procure.
We would greatly appreciate if you could take all possible steps to secure unimpeded humanitarian access and an end to hostilities.
In the deadliest night of bombardment since the beginning of the war, Israel kills 400 people in a single night as hospitals reach breaking point amid shortages of fuel and medicine. Popular calls for ceasefire continue to be ignored internationally.
Key Developments
Four hundred Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, according to Palestinian health officials.
At least 120 newborn babies sustained by incubators at risk of death under relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza, as hospitals run low on fuel, says UN.
The Israeli military threatens to bomb Al-Quds Hospital, says the Palestinian Red Crescent, urging intervention by the international community.
At least 18 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7.
At least 30 bodies recovered by emergency workers in Jabalia refugee camp, most of them women and children, following Israel’s most recent attacks on the camp. Gaza’s civil defense says several people still trapped under the rubble.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discuss stopping Israel’s “brutal crimes” in besieged Gaza in a phone call overnight on Sunday.
At least 406,000 internally displaced people are sheltering in 91 UNRWA installations across Gaza — an increase of 22,000 people over the past 24 hours, says the organization. Since October 7, at least 12 internally displaced people seeking shelter at UNRWA schools have been killed and almost 180 injured, they included.
At least 29UNRWA staffhave been killed since October 7, half of whom were teachers.
In the last 24 hours, Israel’s army hit the Gaza Strip with the deadliest round of relentless bombardment since it began 17 days ago, killing at least 400 Palestinians. Wafa reported at least 25 Israeli air attacks on residential areas, many of them hitting civilian homes with no warnings.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 70 of those killed happened overnight on Sunday as Israel carpet bombed the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp near two hospitals in Gaza City, Al-Shifa and Al-Quds.
Israeli airstrikes wererecordednear Al-Quds Hospital by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, causing fear and panic among internally displaced civilians and medical staff. Al Jazeera also reports that Israeli airstrikes were fired for hours in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza’s northern city of Beit Lahia, causing what the hospital’s director described as “serious damage and injuries.”
Five residential towers were leveled in Rafah, killing at least 50 people, a number likely to rise as many have yet to be rescued from under the rubble, reported Al Jazeera on Monday morning.
Overnight on Sunday and early Monday, Wafareportedthat Israeli airstrikes killed 23 people in Khan Younis, while killing 17 people in Al-Fallujah and injuing dozens of others in an Israeli attack on a residential apartment in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said it attacked over 320 military targets overnight in the Gaza Strip.
Civilians call for a ceasefire as collapsing hospitals demand fuel
Hospital staff are pleading with the international community to support them as they slowly collapse under the pressure of 17 days of siege and constant bombardment. Palestinians in Gaza say that humanitarian aid is insufficient and are demanding a ceasefire.
Since Israel cut off electricity, hospitals across the Gaza Strip are dependent on generators that are powered by fuel, which is quickly running out. Thirty-four trucks with humanitarian aid have arrived in Gaza through the Rafah crossing, none of which have included fuel and are nowhere near enough to meet the needs of the 2 million people living there.
On Sunday, the Indonesian Hospital hospital’s Director, Atef al-Kahlout, told Al Jazeera they were struggling and may have to halt surgeries if Israel doesn’t allow fuel into the Strip.
“We will face a catastrophe if we don’t get more fuel,” he said.
“Medical personnel are exhausted. They have been on duty 24 hours a day since the Israeli attack began to attend to patients who continue to arrive every minute,” al-Kahlout added.
Similarly, at Al-Shifa Hospital, where the highest number of wounded patients and medical staff are currently based, the director, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, says they are now on the brink of a “real disaster” as their fuel sources dwindle and may only last for another 48 hours.
The aid has been taken to a UNRWA-designated warehouse in Deir el-Balah. It is still unclear how they will be distributed, considering Israel’s preconditions on how and where they should be delivered.
In a statement from Biden on Sunday, he announced that Netanyahu has agreed to allow a “continued flow” of humanitarian assistance to Gaza under the condition that none of it reaches Hamas.
As Israeli aggression continues, fighting escalates in the region
Despite the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s pressure on Israel to delay their ground invasion to allow time for more U.S. military assets to arrive in the region, as well as to allow diplomatic efforts to try and release captives inside Gaza, the military continues to launch smaller-scale raids on the area.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says that the attack on Hamas could last “months.”
“It will take one month, two months, three months, and at the end there will be no more Hamas,” he declared.
On Sunday, the Israeli army raided the Gaza Strip to “thwart terrorist infrastructure” and locate Hamas captives in Khan Younis. During the raid, the Israeli military announced that one of its soldiers was killed by an anti-tank missile reportedly shot by Hamas.
Three Hamas fighters were also injured as they pushed Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip, the Qassam Brigades announced on Telegram.
“Fighters engaged an armored Israeli force in a well-prepared ambush to the east of Khan Yunis, just moments after it crossed the border by a few meters,” they said.
“The fighters bravely engaged with the infiltrating force…and they returned to their bases safely,” the statement further noted.
Israel has also escalated its attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to Al Jazeera, Israel’s newly introduced use of airstrikes targeting and killing Hezbollah cells may lead to Hezbollah’s escalation of tactics as rules of engagement continue to develop.
Early on Monday, the Israeli military said it hit two Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, claiming they were planning on launching anti-tank missiles and rockets toward Israel.
Hezbollah said one of their fighters was killed the same day, and Lebanese media reported an Israeli air attack in southern Lebanon; however, Reuters news agency says it is unclear if the two sides were referring to the same set of incidents. On Sunday, Hezbollah announced that they have been attacking several Israeli posts along the border between Lebanon and Israel, adding that 12 of their fighters had been killed over 24 hours, bringing their death toll up to 25 since October 7.
On the same day, the Egyptian military reported shell fragments from an Israeli tank hitting the Egyptian border and injuring at least seven people, including Egyptian border guards. The Israeli military confirmed the report, saying it “accidentally” hit the Egyptian position near their border with Gaza.
Israel’s mass arrest campaign continues
Israeli forces continue tostormthe West Bank, where they are arresting Palestinians at an alarming rate.
Wafa reports that Israeli forces arrested over 120 Palestinians on Monday alone, the majority of whom were detained after Israeli forces raided their homes.
Since October 7, Israel has detained approximately 1,300 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society and Detainees Commission. On top of that, Israeli forces have arrested 4,000 laborers from Gaza, effectively doubling the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails from just over 5,000 to more than 10,000 in just two weeks.
The rights groups say that around 300 detainees are being held in administrative detention, allowing Israel to hold Palestinians indefinitely under “secret evidence” without charge or trial.
International community leaning toward de-escalation tactics
As Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip, the situation in the region intensifies, causing many international leaders to call for a de-escalation.
China’s state media has reported that Beijing is willing to do “whatever is conducive” to promote dialogue and achieve a ceasefire. Zhai Jun, a Chinese diplomat who described the situation as “very serious,” says China will continue their close communication with all international parties.
Zhai Jun has recently been in contact with various foreign ministers, including those from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Norway, as well as representatives from the UN and EU.
Meanwhile, leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the U.S. underscored their support for Israel in ajoint statementin which they also called on Israel to follow international law and protect civilians.
In the statement, the leaders claim they want to “prevent the conflict from spreading” and find a “political solution and durable peace” in the region using diplomatic efforts that include “key partners in the region.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alsodiscussedthe captives taken by Hamas “and the need for their immediate release” with the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog.
“I also expressed my concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and my support for the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security,” Trudeau added.
According to Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will travel to Israel this week to meet with the Israeli prime minister.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, announced plans late on Sunday that the U.S. would increase military resources in the region to enhance the U.S. presence in the region and bolster its support for Israel in response to “recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces.”
“If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation…our advice is, don’t,” Austin warned on ABC’s This Week program.
The Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine (WCJP) organized a rally and march on October 21, drawing thousands to the streets of downtown Milwaukee in a show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
The peaceful demonstration began at Red Arrow Park and concluded at “The Calling” sculpture along the Lakefront, a prominent landmark in the city.
The event was marked by an outpouring of support from the local community, with participants ranging from students to elderly residents, coming together to express their concern for the ongoing humanitarian issues in Gaza.
“Thousands marched in Milwaukee for a ceasefire on Gaza and a liberated Palestine. In the most segregated metro area in the U.S. almost every demographic, religion, and ethnicity was there – a true representation of the entire city calling for a free Palestine.”– Jewish Voice for Peace
Speakers at the rally highlighted the humanitarian challenges faced by Gazans, emphasizing the importance of international understanding and support. The march was not just a call for peace, but also a plea for justice and human rights for Palestinians.
The newly formed WCJP coalition has been an active voice championing the cause of Palestinians, and promoting a fair and balanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group’s mission has been to educate the public about the history and realities of Palestine, and to advocate for the rights and dignity of its people.
“This event is not just for Palestinians but for all of us. We need to stand up for what is right and make our voices heard,” said a participant in the Milwaukee march, who declined to give their name.
A second aid convoy destined for desperate Palestinian civilians reached Gaza on October 22, as Israel widened its attacks to include targets in Syria and the occupied West Bank.
Relief workers said that far more aid was needed to address the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where half the territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes.
The U.N. humanitarian agency said the first convoy on October 21 carried about 4% of an average day’s imports before the war and “a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege.”
For days, Israel has been on the verge of launching a ground offensive in Gaza following the October 7 rampage by Hamas through a series of Israeli communities. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, waiting for the command to cross.
Fears of a widening war have grown as Israeli warplanes continue to targets across Gaza, two airports in Syria, and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants.
So far, Israeli bombings have left 14,245 people injured and some 1,450 people still missing under the rubble, 800 of whom are children.
On Sunday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that 13 of its officials died in the last few hours, bringing its death toll to 29 workers.
"It is no confirmed that 29 of our colleagues in Gaza have been killed since October 7. Half of these colleagues were UNRWA teachers. As an Agency, we are devastated. We are grieving with each other and with the families," UNRWA posted on the social network X.
According to the latest UNRWA report, 17 staff were wounded and 20 displaced people were injured when an attack hit a building adjacent to a UNRWA school, where some 5,000 internally displaced people were sheltering.
Since Oct. 7, "almost 180 internally displaced persons sheltering in schools have been injured and 12 of them have died," the UN agency noted.
In 16 days, Israeli bombings have killed 4,650 Palestinians, including some 1,900 children, over 1,000 women, and 187 elderly people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
Israeli bombings have left 14,245 people injured and some 1,450 people still missing under the rubble, 800 of whom are children.
UNRWA detailed that almost 406,000 internally displaced people are taking refuge in 91 of its facilities in the Middle, Khan Younis, and Rafah areas. This figure represents an increase of 22,000 internally displaced people over the last 24 hours.
Israel is not only decimating Gaza with airstrikes but employing the oldest and cruelest weapon of war — starvation. Israel’s message, on the eve of a ground invasion, is clear. Leave Gaza or Die.
Israel, with the backing of its U.S. and European allies, is preparing to launch not only a scorched earth campaign in Gaza but the worst ethnic cleansing since the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The goal is to drive tens, most probably hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the southern border at Rafah into refugee camps in Egypt. The reverberations will be catastrophic, not only for the Palestinians, but throughout the region, almost certainly triggering armed clashes to the north of Israel with Hezbollah in Lebanon and perhaps with Syria and Iran.
The Biden administration, slavishly doing Israel’s bidding, is fueling the madness. The U.S. was the only country to veto the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to deliver food, medicine, water and fuel to Gaza. It has blocked proposals for a ceasefire. It has proposed a draft U.N. Security Councilresolution that says Israel has a right to defend itself. The resolution also demands Iran stop exporting arms to "militias and terrorist groups threatening peace and security across the region."
The U.S. and its Western allies are as morally bankrupt and as complicit in genocide as those who witnessed the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and did nothing.
The conflict, which has taken the lives of 1,400 Israelis and at least 4,600 Palestinians in Gaza, is widening. Israel carried out a second airstrike on two airports in Syria. It daily trades rocket barrages with Hezbollah militias. U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Shia militias. The USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer, shot down three cruise missiles on Thursday, apparently launched by the Houthis in Yemen and heading towards Israel.
Israel is also struggling to quell daily violent clashes in the occupied West Bank. It carried out an airstrike on Sunday on a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp – the first air strike in the West Bank for two decades - that killed at least 2 people. Armed Jewish settlers have been rampaging through Palestinian towns in the West Bank. At least 90 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by armed settlers or the Israeli military since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other resistance fighters, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office. Some 4,000 workers from Gaza and 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been arrested in the past two weeks, doubling the number of Palestinian prisoners to 10,000 held by Israel, over half of whom are political prisoners
“Many of the prisoners have had their limbs, hands and legs broken … degrading and insulting expressions, insults, cursing, tying them with handcuffs to the back and tightening them at the end to the point of causing severe pain … naked, humiliating and group search of the prisoners,” the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees’ Affairs, Qadura Fares, said at a press conference.
B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, told the BBC that since the Oct. 7 attack, it had documented "a concerted and organized effort by settlers to use the fact that the entire international and local attention is focused on Gaza and the north of Israel to try to seize land in the West Bank."
Inside Israel, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and Jerusalem IDs are being harassed, detained, arrested and expelled from jobs and universities in what is described as a “witch hunt.” More than 152,000 Israelis have been evacuated from towns and villages near the borders of Gaza and Lebanon.
The U.S., in an effort to thwart a military response by Iran that could trigger a regional war, is deploying an additional 2,000 troops to the Middle East. It will redeploy one of its strike groups to the Persian Gulf and send additional air defense systems to the region. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its strike group — which last weekend was being deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea to join the USS Gerald R. Ford — has been redirected to the Persian Gulf. A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile battery, and Patriot missile defense system battalions, have also been sent to the Persian Gulf.
Israel has unleashed its Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Death, Famine, War and Conquest.
It has given Gazans two choices. Leave Gaza or die.
Palestinians will be killed not only from the bombs and shells, and eventually, with the ground invasion, bullets and tank shells, but from hunger and epidemics such as cholera. Without water, fuel and medicine and with the breakdown of sanitation, diseases will spread swiftly. The U.N. states that hospitals in Gaza “are on the brink of collapse.” Thousands of patients will die once fuel runs out for hospital generators.
A doctor from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza reported in an interview Saturday, “We are collapsing.” He spoke of a lack of oxygen, light and medical supplies, no water in some departments, concerns about cholera and the loss of doctors killed by Israeli airstrikes, including a dentist killed in Israel’s bombing of an Orthodox church that left at least 18 dead, including several children.
The handful of trucks, 37 so far, of aid into Gaza is a cynical public relations gimmick demanded by the Biden administration. It will do little to alleviate the Israeli-engineered humanitarian crisis. The U.N. says it needs at least 100 aid tracks a day. Gaza’s last functioning seawater desalination plant shut down on Sunday because of a lack of fuel.
Israel has no intention of lifting the total siege on Gaza. It announced it will increase its airstrikes. It will continue, as it has for the past two weeks, to extinguish the lives of Palestinians and terrorize and starve them into leaving Gaza.
The ground assault on Gaza will not be quick. It will involve weeks, perhaps months, of street fighting. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin compared the looming battle in Gaza to the U.S. assault on the Iraqi city of Mosul, held by ISIS, in 2014. It took the U.S. nine months to recapture Mosul.
When Israel says this will be a “long war” they are, for once, telling the truth.
Israel has requested more military aid from Washington, $14.3 billion including $10.6 billion for air and missile defense. It will get it. Israel is rapidly depleting its stocks as it pounds Gaza, including in the south of Gaza where hundreds of thousands of displaced families from the north have fled.
Israel will not permit the distribution of the $100 million in U.S. aid pledged for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, at least not until their scorched earth campaign is finished. But by then, Gaza will be unrecognizable. Israel will have annexed part or all of it. Maybe the money can go to building more illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. And pledging aid is not the same as appropriating it. So perhaps that, too, is part of the illusion.
Egyptian officials are acutely aware of what comes next. Up to half, maybe more, of the 2.3 million Palestinians will be pushed by Israel into Egypt on Gaza’s southern border and never be allowed to return.
“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted,” Egyptian president Abdulfattah al-Sisi warned.
Reports out of Egypt contend that Washington has promised to forgive much of Egypt’s massive $162.9 billion debt, as well as offer other economic incentives in exchange for Egypt’s acquiescence to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The refugees, once they cross the border into Egypt, will be left to rot in the Sinai.
“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” said Francesca Albanese, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.
Israel has long used war to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Government officials have openly called for another Nakba, or “catastrophe,” the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine and driven into refugee camps to create the state of Israel. During the 1967 war, which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel ethnically cleansed another 300,000 Palestinians during the Naksa, or “day of the setback,” which is commemorated every year by Palestinians.
Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, however, is not limited to wars. There has been an ongoing slow motion ethnic cleansing as Israel has steadily built more Jewish-only colonies and incrementally seized Palestinian land. Palestinians, denied basic civil liberties in Israel’s apartheid state, have been robbed of assets, including, often, their homes. They have faced mounting restrictions on their physical movements. They have been blocked from trading and business, especially the selling of produce. They have found themselves increasingly impoverished and trapped behind walls and security fences erected around Gaza and the West Bank. At the same time, they have endured periodic Israeli airstrikes, targeted assassinations and near daily attacks by armed Jewish settlers and the Israeli army.
Israel prevented Palestinians who left the West Bank and Gaza Strip from returning at the rate of about 9,000 Palestinians per year following the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994, according to the Israel human rights group HaMoked. Israel has also revoked the residency permits for some 14,000 Palestinians who lived in East Jerusalem since 1967 according to B’Tselem.
Israel demolished 9,880 structures, including over 2,600 inhabited residential buildings, displacing over 14,000 people and affecting 233,681 in the West Bank alone between Jan. 1, 2009 and 7 Oct. 7, 2023,according to data from the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Since the Oct. 7 attack, a further 38 homes and other structures were demolished in the West Bank affecting an additional 13,613 people and displacing at least 73.
Less than 2.2 percent of Palestinian requests for construction permits made between 2009 and 2020 were approved,according to data from Peace Now and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The number of Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, however, has gone from zero before the June 1967 war, to between 600,000 to 750,000spread out across at least 250 settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, all of them in violation of international law.
Israel makes no secret about its intentions.
Israel’s defense minister,Yoav Gallant, told troops preparing to enter Gaza, “I have released all the restraints.”
Knesset member Ariel Kallner, part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called on X, formerly known as Twitter, for “a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48.”
The Israeli army mobilized Ezra Yachin, a 95-year-old army veteran, to “motivate” the troops. Yachin was a member of the Lehi Zionist militia that carried out numerous massacres of Palestinian civilians, including the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, 1948, where over 100 Palestinian civilians, many women and children, were slaughtered.
"Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them," Yachin said addressing Israeli troops.
"Erase them, their families, mothers and children,” he went on. “These animals can no longer live."
"Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them,” he said. “If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him.”
Where are our humanitarian interventionists? The ones who wept crocodile tears about the human rights of Ukranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans and Afghans, to justify massive arms shipments and war? Where is the old anti-war wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal class? What has happened to the public intellectuals who used to decry the slaughter of innocents and the U.S. war machine? Where are the jurists who uphold the rule of international law? Why are the few lonely voices speaking out about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians attacked, censored and doxxed?
“The previous president wanted to ban us and probably put us in concentration camps,” said Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, at a rally in support of a ceasefire on Oct. 20 in Washington in front of the U.S. Capitol. “This one wants us just to die. That’s how it feels. Shame on them.”
Israel will not halt its genocidal campaign in Gaza against the Palestinians until there is a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. Our weapons systems, munitions and attack aircraft sustain the slaughter. We must terminate the $3.8 billion in military aid that the U.S. gives to Israel each year. We must support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and demand suspension of all free trade and other agreements between the U.S. and Israel. Only when these props are knocked out from under Israel will the Israeli leadership be forced, as was the apartheid regime in South Africa, to integrate Palestinians into one state with equal rights. As long as these props remain, the Palestinians are doomed.
Statement from the United Nations Association of Greater Milwaukee (UNA-GM) Board of Directors on the Crisis in the Middle East October 20, 2023
The members of the United Nations Association of Greater Milwaukee (UNA-GM) Board of Directors are devastated by the war occurring between Israel and Hamas. The United Nations Association of Greater Milwaukee is committed to upholding the values and principles of the United Nations and the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) including peace and the preservation of human rights for all. The United Nations Association of Greater Milwaukee Board of Directors is in agreement with and supports the statement from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on October 19 th , 2023 including his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space to help realize his two appeals and to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing.
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Statement from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
October 19, 2023
“…I feel, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, the obligation to say a few words about the catastrophe unfolding in the Middle East. The region is on the precipice. Immediately before departing for Beijing, I made two urgent humanitarian appeals: To Hamas, for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages.
To Israel, to immediately allow unrestricted access of humanitarian aid to respond to the most basic needs of the people of Gaza - the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children. I am fully aware of the deep grievances of the Palestinian people after 56 years of occupation. But, as serious as these grievances are, they cannot justify the acts of terror against civilians committed by Hamas on October 7 that I immediately condemned. But those attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Each of my two humanitarian appeals have a value in themselves. They are not bargaining chips. They are simply the right thing to do. And I am horrified by the hundreds of people killed at Al Ahli hospital this same day, in Gaza, by a strike that I strongly condemned earlier today. I call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space to help realize my two appeals and to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing. Too many lives - and the fate of the entire region - hang in the balance.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
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Additional information and resources
Additional information and resources on the “Crisis in the Middle East” that is curated and updated daily by the Better World Campaign, a partner organization with the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), can be found by clicking on the following link:
The Better World Campaign (BWC) is the premier advocacy organization devoted to fostering a strong partnership between the United States and the United Nations – a vision that promotes core American interests and builds a more secure, prosperous, and healthy world. We encourage U.S. leadership to work hand-in-hand with the UN to tackle the world’s biggest issues by engaging policymakers and the American public to build support for the UN’s life-saving work.
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On-Line Briefing for UNA-USA Members on the “Crisis in the Middle East” – October 25 th , 2023 from 12:30 pm – 1:15 pm CT In order to help provide context and analysis of the situation, UNA-USA has coordinated with Jeff Feltman, Senior Fellow at UN Foundation, and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, to provide an online briefing exclusively to UNA-USA members on October 25, 2023 from 12:30 pm - 1:15 pm ET. Jeff Feltman previously served as the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs for six years, briefing the UN Security Council, guiding special envoys, and overseeing political mediation efforts. Before the UN, he was a U.S. Foreign Service officer, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2009 to 2012 and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon from 2004 to 2008. He also had postings in Irbil, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tunisia, Tel Aviv, Budapest, and Port-au-Prince. Use the link below to register for the online briefing on October 25 th , 2023
____________________________________________ Steve Watrous – President of the UNA of Greater Milwaukee On behalf of the UNA of Greater Milwaukee Board of Directors
The terrible violence that has swept across Israel and Gaza over the past week is the latest cycle in a struggle that has been ongoing for more than 75 years. The brutal killing of innocent Israeli civilians, including children, by Hamas has triggered a harsh reprisal that is taking the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians, including children. We condemn all this murdering of innocent people who are just struggling to live their lives and raise their families.
On Oct. 12, Muslims, Jews and people of other faiths held a press conference at the Islamic Resource Center in Greenfield. The Coalition for Justice in Palestine included 13 speakers representing a variety of organizations and backgrounds. They spoke about the longstanding unbalanced coverage by the American media of Israeli-Palestinian relations as well as the conditions endured by Palestinians in Gaza, a 25x7.5-mile strip along the Mediterranean coast wedged between Israel and Egypt. The speakers criticized the U.S. media and government for their response to the crisis.
In her opening remarks, Janan Najeeb, executive director of the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, addressed the need for “an accurate narrative” instead of a “one-sided presentation” that disregards the Palestinians. She described Gaza as a gigantic prison, densely populated, subject to periodic attacks with high rates of unemployment and malnutrition. “We demand that the media be fair and representative in acknowledging the long-standing suffering of the Palestinian people.” She added that the American media is “endorsing war crimes against the unarmed civilian population” by refusing to question Israel’s air raids and threatened ground assault, ostensibly aimed at Hamas, the organization responsible for brutal assaults on Israeli civilians, but devastating the lives of Gaza’s 2.5 million inhabitants.
Representatives of 12 other organizations spoke at the press conference. Jewish Voice for Peace’s Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, associate professor at UWM’s Zilber School of Public Health, said that the loss of Israeli lives from Hamas’ attack cannot justify the loss of Palestinian lives from reprisals. “Palestinians are being dehumanized by our media, our government and too many Jewish organizations,” Halinka Malcoe said. She cited Israeli bombings of hospitals, apartment buildings, mosques and marketplaces in response to Hamas. Gaza’s food, water and electricity have been cut-off. “We call on people of conscience to call on our government to work for de-escalation,” she insisted.
Othman Atta, executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, spoke of the obliteration of entire Gazan neighborhoods under Israeli bombardment. “The people have nowhere to go. Where are they going to live? How will they survive? We are against the killing of any civilians anywhere. According to international law, any people living under occupation have the right to resist that occupation,” he said.
Julie Enslow from Peace Action Wisconsin has traveled to Palestine as part of peace delegations and “saw for myself the oppression and suffering of the Palestinian people. I implore the U.S. to stop supporting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and bombardment of Gaza. Violence begets violence. We call for a ceasefire and a just resolution to the conflict so Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.”
Moving statements were made by two Palestinians with family in Gaza. One had spoken to his sister the day before she died. While she was shopping for food, the market was struck by Israeli warplanes and she was killed, leaving behind three children. Another man lost his cousin, a UN employee, on the first day of the Israeli bombardment.
Najeeb concluded the press conference by warning that the new phase of violence could overspill into the U.S. in the form of hate crimes.
UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
BUREAU CONDEMNS KILLING AND WOUNDING OF CIVILIANS IN GAZA AND CALLS FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE
17 October 2023
Following is astatementby the General Assembly Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, issued today:
The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People strongly condemns the killing and wounding of civilians and the targeting of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. It expresses grave concern at the humanitarian disaster being imposed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian civilian population.
It calls on the international community to put aside divisions and uphold the political, legal, humanitarian and moral obligations invoked by this dangerous crisis. The international community must act with urgency for an immediate ceasefire, to deliver humanitarian assistance to all those in need, and for a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict, which has been too long delayed.
International humanitarian law is unequivocal about the need to protect civilians and persons under occupation and during armed conflict. The current escalation in Gaza, coming after decades of denying the rights of the Palestinian people, has already broken the limits of international law and is providing ample evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ongoing indiscriminate and collective punishment, military attacks on densely populated areas as well as against hospitals, places of worship, and schools where civilians seek refuge are war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The rapidly rising casualty toll, with thousands of civilians killed and wounded, including women and children, and the deliberate deprivation of food, water, electricity and medicines to the over 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are shocking and unjustifiable, constituting grave breaches of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.
There is no military solution to this conflict. Only a solution that recognizes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including to self-determination and freedom, can bring peace and security to the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.
The Bureau appeals to everyone to work for an immediate ceasefire to halt the violence and bloodshed, to halt the evacuation orders and the forced displacement of traumatized civilians, and to ensure safe and unimpeded access for the delivery of humanitarian aid and medical assistance to civilians and protected persons. It calls on the International Criminal Court to dispatch an urgent fact-finding mission to the region to investigate potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.
On the heels of President Biden’s visit to Israel and as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza passes 3,300, expert attorneys from the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights released a legal and factual analysis of Israel’s unfolding crime of genocide against the Palestinian people and U.S. complicity in this grave international law violation.
The release of the briefing comes soon after the U.S veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning both Hamas’s attack on Israel and all violence against civilians and calling for humanitarian access to Gaza. It also comes as President Biden seeks to secure additional, unconditional military support for Israel.
According to the emergency briefing paper, there is a credible case, based on powerful evidence, that Israel is attempting to commit, if not actively committing, genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory, and specifically against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
The legal and factual analysis provided by the Center for Constitutional Rights describes how, through its ongoing unconditional military, diplomatic, and political support to Israel, the United States is not only failing to prevent genocide, but is complicit. Under international law, the United States – and responsible U.S. citizens, including and up to the President – can be held accountable for their role in furthering genocide.
As scholars and observers increasingly warn of genocide, and as protestors rise up against Israel’s gravest atrocities against Palestinians since 1948, the Center for Consitutional Rights has been asked by Palestinian partners on the ground to offer this analysis as we strengthen our collective efforts towards accountability and freedom. The emergency briefing paper calls on the United States to take all necessary measures to secure a ceasefire, pressure Israel to end all military operations, end all U.S. military aid to Israel, and ensure the provision to Palestinians in Gaza of urgently needed basic necessities for life. The experts also stress in the briefing paper the urgent need to address the root causes of the current catastrophe, especially the 16-year closure of Gaza, the 56-year illegal occupation, and the apartheid regime across all of historic Palestine.
Access the Emergency Legal Briefinghere and the resource pagehere.
Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza.
Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state. The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.” The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.
Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief.
I covered war for two decades, including seven years in the Middle East. I learned quite a bit about the size and lethality of explosive devices. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that killed an estimated 500 civilians in the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza. Nothing. If Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad had these kinds of missiles, huge buildings in Israel would be rubble with hundreds of dead. They don’t.
The whistling sound, audible on the video moments before the explosion, appears to comes from the high velocity of a missile. This sound gives it away. No Palestinian rocket makes this noise. And then there is the speed of the missile. Palestinian rockets are slow and lumbering, clearly visible as they arch in the sky and then tumble in free fall towards their targets. They do not strike with precision or travel at close to supersonic speed. They are incapable of killing hundreds of people.
The Israeli military dropped “roof knocking” rockets with no warheads on the hospital in the days leading up to the Oct. 17 strike, the familiar warning given by Israel to evacuate buildings, according to al-Ahli hospital officials. Hospital officials also said they had received calls from Israel saying “we warned you to evacuate twice.” Israel has demanded that all hospitals in northern Gaza be evacuated.
Following the strike on the hospital, Hananya Naftali, a “digital aide” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.” The post was quickly deleted.
Since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Palestinian resistance fighters, which reportedly left some 1,300 Israelis dead, many of them civilians, and saw some 200 kidnapped as hostages and taken to Gaza, Israel has carried out 51 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza that have killed 15 healthcare workers and injured 27, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Out of 35 hospitals in Gaza, four are not functioning due to severe damage and targeting. Only eight of the 22 UNRWA primary healthcare centers are “partially functional,” the WHO says.
The brazenness of Israeli lies stunned those of us who reported from Gaza. It did not matter if we had seen the Israeli attack, including the shooting of unarmed Palestinians. It did not matter how many witnesses we interviewed. It did not matter what photographic and forensic evidence we obtained. Israel lied. Small lies. Big lies. Huge lies. These lies came reflexively and instantly from the Israeli military, Israeli politicians and Israeli media. They were amplified by Israel’s well-oiled propaganda machine and repeated with a cloying sincerity on international news outlets.
Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality. Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.
Israel has invented an Orwellian lexicon. Children killed by Israelis become children caught in crossfire. The bombing of residential districts, with dozens of dead and wounded, becomes a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. The destruction of Palestinian homes becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists.
The Big Lie — Große Lüge — feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicit — racism among its supporters and terror among its victims. The Big Lies fosters the myth of a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic terrorism, barbarism and medievalism on the other.
George Orwell in his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” called the Big Lie “doublethink”. Doublethink uses “logic against logic” and “repudiate[s] morality while laying claim to it.” The Big Lie abolishes nuances, ambiguities and contradictions that can plague conscience. It is designed to create cognitive dissonance. It permits no gray zones. The world is black and white, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. The Big Lie allows believers to take comfort — a comfort they are desperately seeking — in their own moral superiority even as they abrogate all morality. It feeds, what Edward Bernays called, the “logic-proof compartment of dogmatic adherence.” All effective propaganda, Bernays writes, targets and builds upon these irrational “psychological habits.”
Israeli supporters thirst for these lies. They do not want to know the truth. The truth would force them to examine their racism, self-delusion and complicity in oppression, murder and genocide.
Most importantly, the Big Lie sends an ominous message to the Palestinians. The Big Lie states that Israel will wage a campaign of mass terror and genocide and never take responsibility for its crimes. The Big Lie obliterates the truth. It obliterates the dignity of human thought and human action. It obliterates facts. It obliterates history. It obliterates comprehension. It obliterates hope. It reduces all communication to the language of violence. When oppressors speak to the oppressed exclusively through indiscriminate violence, the oppressed answer through indiscriminate violence.
The cartoonist Joe Sacco and I watched Israeli soldiers taunt and shoot small boys in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. We interviewed the boys and their parents afterwards in the hospital. In a few cases we attended their funerals. We had their names. We had the dates and locations of the shootings.
Israel’s response was to say that we were not in Gaza. We had made it up.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Defense Minister and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spokesperson immediately blamed the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, on Palestinian gunmen. Israel disseminated footage of a Palestinian fighter they said shot and killed the journalist, who was wearing a flak jacket and helmet marked “PRESS.”
Benny Gantz, who was at the time Defense Minister, stated that “no [Israeli] gunfire was directed at the journalist,” and that the Israeli army had “seen footage of indiscriminate shooting by Palestinian terrorists”.
This lie was peddled until video footage examined by B’Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, identified the location of the Palestinian gunman depicted in the video. The video, the human rights organization found, was taken in a different location from where Shireen was killed.
When Israel is caught lying, as it was with the murder of Shireen, it promises an investigation. But these investigations are a sham. Impartial investigations into the hundreds of killings by soldiers and Jewish settlers of Palestinians are rarely carried out. Perpetrators are almost never brought to trial or held accountable. The pattern of Israeli obfuscation is predictable. So is the collusion of nearly all of the corporate media along with Republican and Democratic politicians. U.S. politicians decried the murder of Shireen and dutifully repeated the old mantra, calling for a “thorough investigation” by the army that carried out the crime.
A few months later, Israel admitted that there was a “high possibility” that an Israeli soldier killed the journalist by accident, but by then the eruption of street protests and rage over the killing of the journalist was over and her murder largely forgotten.
By the time the conclusive proof comes out about the bombing of the hospital, it too will be a distant memory.
There is dramatic footage captured in September 2000 at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip — where I saw a nineteen-year-old boy shot and killed by an Israeli sniper — by France 2 TV, of a father trying to shield his traumatized 12-year-old son, Muhammad al-Durrah, from Israeli gunfire that ultimately killed him.
The killing of the boy resulted in the typical propaganda campaign by Israel. Israeli officials spent years lying about the killing, first blaming the Palestinians for the shooting, later suggesting that the scene was faked, and finally insisting the boy was still alive.
When an Israeli soldier, in 2003, murdered the 23-year-old student and American activist Rachel Corrie, by crushing her to death with a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the illegal demolition of a Palestinian doctor’s home, the Israeli army said it was an accident for which Corrie was responsible.
The Israeli military has killed “at least” 20 journalists since 2001, with no accountability, according to a 2023 report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “Immediately after a journalist is killed by security forces, Israeli officials often push out a counter narrative to media reporting,” the CPJconcluded. This includes blaming the deaths on “indiscriminate fire” by Palestinians or attempts to discredit those killed as “terrorists.”
Israel blocks the work of independent human rights organizations into atrocities and war crimes it commits in Gaza and the West Bank. It refuses to cooperate with the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes in the Occupied Territories. It does not cooperate with the U.N. Human Rights Council and prohibits the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,from entering the country. Israel revoked the work permit for Omar Shakir, the Director of Human Rights Watch (Israel and Palestine), in 2018 and expelled him. In May 2018, Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy published a report calling on the European Union and European states to halt their direct and indirect financial support and funding to Palestinian and international human rights organizations that “have ties to terror and promote boycotts against Israel.”
After the bombing of the hospital, Israel first released a video that purported to show Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets which struck the hospital. The Israelis hastily removed the video when journalists noticed that time stamps showed the images were taken 40 minutes after the strike on the hospital.
Israeli propagandists — aware that Palestinian rockets have little explosive power — then claimed that Hamas stored munitions under the hospital. This caused the massive explosion, they said. But if this was true, it would mean there would be a secondary explosion. There was none. And now Israel has released what they say is a recording of two Hamas militants discussing the missile strike on the hospital. The militants ask each other, in a self-incriminating conversation that is too ridiculous to believe, if Hamas or PIJ carried out the strike. Please. How was Israel completely in the dark about an incursion by thousands of armed Palestinian militants from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and able to capture this incriminating conversation by two supposed militants?
“Israel has a whole unit of ‘mistaravim’, Israeli Jewish undercover agents trained to pose as Palestinians and secretly operate among Palestinians,” the reporter Jonathan Cook writes. “Israel produced a highly popular TV series about such people in Gaza called Fauda. You have to be beyond credulous to think that Israel couldn’t, and wouldn’t, rig up a call like this to fool us, just as it regularly fools Palestinians in Gaza.”
Israel has also long targeted medical facilities, ambulances and medics, as Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein points out. It bombed a Palestinian children’s hospital during the 1982 war in Lebanon, killing 60 people. It also carried out missile strikes on clearly marked Lebanese ambulances during the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon. It damaged or destroyed 29 ambulances and almost half of Gaza’s health facilities, including 15 hospitals, during the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. It routinely prohibited wounded Palestinians from being picked up by ambulances during this operation, often leaving them to die. During Operation Protective Edge, the 51-day assault on Gaza in 2014, Israel destroyed or damaged 17 hospitals and 56 primary healthcare centers and damaged or destroyed 45 ambulances.
You can see my interview, released today, with Professor Finkelstein about Gaza and Israel here.
Amnesty International, which investigated the Israeli attacks on three of these hospitals in 2014, dismissed the “evidence” for the attacks offered by Israel as false. “The image tweeted by the Israeli military does not match satellite images of the al-Wafa hospital and appears to depict a different location,” the report read.
Expose Israeli lies and you are attacked by Israel and its supporters as an anti-Semite and apologist for terrorists. You are banished from mainstream media. You are denied forums to speak about the issue and, as has happened to me, disinvited from university events.
It is an old game, one I have played as a reporter many, many times. I bear the scars of the lies spewed out by Israel and its lobby. Meanwhile, Israel continues its butchery, endorsed and even lauded by Western political leaders, including Joe Biden, who accompany the torrent of lies from Israel like a Wagnerian chorus.
Israeli offensive killing a child every 15 minutes in besieged enclave
The NGO emphasised that the numbers, based on those provided by the Ministry of Health, only account for people admitted to hospitals. With an estimated 1000 Palestinians still under rubble according to the Ministry of Interior, the death toll is likely to be higher.
The DCI said that the cutting of electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza means that Palestinian children are suffering the psychological impacts of the “increasingly dire humanmade humanitarian crisis”.
Lack of electricity has exacerbated food scarcity, making refigeration impossible. Additionally, the cutting of water to Gaza means many children are now resorting to contaminated water sources, according to Unicef.
"The repercussions of this war will not only affect the victims we have lost... but the psychological impact on us civilians and our children will be catastrophic,”saidMohammad Abu Rukbeh, a senior Gaza field researcher at DCI's Palestine branch.
According to the NGO, the psychological toll on children who have survived the air strikes in Gaza is compounded by pre-existing traumas sustained from a 16-year siege on the strip.
'The emotional repercussions for these children are profound'
Prior to the current offensive,one in four Gaza children were already in need of psychosocial support,over half were dependent on humanitarian assistance for their survival, withfour out of fiveliving with depression, grief and fear.
"The emotional repercussions for these children are profound, as they grapple not only with the pain of the current situation in their city but also with the daunting challenge of navigating life without the foundational support of their families," the NGOsaid.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian politician MK Aida Touma-Slimansaidin the Knesset that "no child, neither Jew nor Palestinian, is guilty and that no child should be a victim of this blood cycle".
In response MK Merav Ben-Ari, a member of the centrist Yesh Atid party, said: "The children in Gaza brought it upon themselves."
SENSITIVE IMAGES THAT MAY OFFEND OR DISTURB Thousands of Palestinians fled the northern Gaza Strip before an expected Israeli ground assault, while Israel said it would keep two roads open to let people escape.
Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel Flash Update #11
17 October 2023
OCTOBER 10, 2023
Statement of the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area
We are deeply concerned and saddened by the recent escalation of violence in the region, particularly the attacks on Israel by Hamas. Our hearts go out to all those affected by the conflict, including innocent civilians.
At the heart of this long-standing conflict are deeply rooted historical, political, and humanitarian issues that have caused immeasurable pain and suffering on all sides. We firmly believe that the only way to resolve this conflict is through peaceful means, dialogue, and diplomacy. We urge all parties involved to:
Cease Hostilities: We call upon all parties to immediately halt all acts of violence and engage in constructive dialogue. The cycle of violence has brought untold suffering to the people of the region and has only perpetuated the conflict.
Protect Civilians: It is imperative to prioritize the protection of civilians, including women and children, who are the most vulnerable in times of conflict. All parties must abide by international humanitarian law and ensure the safety of non-combatants.
Resume Negotiations: We encourage all stakeholders to return to the negotiating table with a commitment to finding a just and lasting solution to the conflict. A peaceful resolution based on the principles of mutual recognition, coexistence, and security is the only way forward.
International Engagement: We call upon the international community to intensify efforts to mediate and facilitate a peaceful resolution. The support of the global community is essential in helping the parties involved to reach a sustainable agreement.
Humanitarian Aid: We urge unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to those affected by the conflict. Humanitarian aid is essential to alleviate the suffering of those in need.
In times of crisis, we must come together to promote dialogue, understanding, and reconciliation. Only through a commitment to peace and a genuine desire for a better future can we hope to break the cycle of violence and bring about a more stable and secure region for all.
KEY POINTS
Hundreds of fatalities in Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza were reported as this Flash Update was being finalized (22:00). The compound hosted patients and internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking safe shelter.
As hostilities entered the eleventh day, heavy Israeli bombardments on Gaza, from the air, sea and land, have continued almost uninterrupted. In the last 20 hours (as of 17:30), 192 Palestinians have been killed, bringing the cumulative fatality toll in the Gaza Strip to 3,000, including at least 853 children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza (excluding Al Ahli hospital casualties). Hundreds of additional fatalities are believed to be trapped under the rubble.
The number of IDPs in Gaza is estimated at about one million, including about 352,000 IDPs staying in UNRWA schools in central and southern Gaza alone, in increasingly dire conditions. This afternoon (17 October), an UNRWA school in Al Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, sheltering some 4,000 IDPs, was hit during an Israeli airstrike, killing at least six people.
The Spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office stated on Tuesday that there are “appalling reports that civilians attempting to relocate to southern Gaza were struck and killed by an explosive weapon,” and urged Israel “to avoid targeting civilians and civilian objects or conducting area bombardments, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
The complete siege of Gaza continues. The Rafah Crossing has remained closed, preventing the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid, including food, water and medicines awaiting on the Egyptian side.
The UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs stressed today (17 October) the need for a humanitarian suspension of hostilities enabling the delivery of aid, along with some respite from the bloodshed.
Gaza has been under full electricity blackout for the seventh consecutive day. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) managed to deliver locally stored fuel to Gaza’s largest hospital (Shifa), enabling the operation of generators for a few more days. Other hospitals are operating at a bare minimum capacity.
The average water consumption for all needs (drinking, cooking and hygiene) is currently estimated at three litres per day per person in Gaza. There is increasing water consumption from unsafe sources, placing the population at risk of death or infectious disease outbreak.
The Palestinian armed groups’ indiscriminate rocket firing towards Israeli population centres continued, with no new Israeli fatalities reported (as of 21:00 17 October). Overall, more than 1,300 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel, according to Israeli authorities, the vast majority on 7 October.
At least 199 people are held captive in Gaza, including Israelis and foreign nationals. On 16 October, UN’s emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths expressed deep concern about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and about the fate of Israeli hostages, stressing that “they have to be let out straight away.”
In the West Bank, since the afternoon of 15 October, Israeli forces have killed three Palestinians, bringing the fatality toll by Israeli forces and settlers since 7 October to 61, including 16 children.
Wisconsin-Based Coalition for Justice in Palestine calls for an end to intimidation and bullying of democratically elected officials calling for a fair Resolution from the Wisconsin State Assembly
October 13, 2023
A broad coalition of Wisconsin organizations that work for peace and justice formed on October 8th to respond to the false and one-sided narratives regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the continued oppression of the indigenous Palestinian population.
The coalition’s member organizations include Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace–Milwaukee, Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice, Milwaukee Anti-war Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Students for Democratic Society, Adalah Justice Group, Syrian American Medical Society-Milwaukee, Peace Action Wisconsin, Students for Justice in Palestine at UWM, Marquette University and UW-Madison, Arab and Muslim Women’s Research and Resource Institute, Muslim American Society, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Friends of Palestine WI, Milwaukee Islamic Dawa Center, Al-Quran Foundation, Catholics for Peace and Justice, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Black Youth Project 100, We Are Many - United Against Hate, MKE4Palestine, United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), and Sunseekers Milwaukee.
In a joint statement, they said, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives, and condemn unequivocally the decades of provocation including the years by one of the most extreme supremacist Israeli governments in history.
“We are also alarmed by the one-sided narrative in mainstream U.S. media and from President Biden’s administration that posits Israel as a victim and ignores the tremendous suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza under decades of brutal Israeli occupation.”
This new Wisconsin coalition is calling for a correction of false narratives and an end to U.S support of Israeli apartheid and the subjugation of Palestinians. It is demanding a ceasefire, humanitarian aid and safety for civilians, thousands who are injured, and an end to the forced dehydration and starvation of the civilian population of Gaza.
This coalition is extremely distressed that so many of the elected representatives that have worked with our organizations for years failed to give thought and consideration to the indigenous 2.2 million Palestinian civilians, Muslim and Christian who are facing imminent genocide in Gaza. We note these representatives have often stood against false and one-sided narratives targeting Black Americans, Latinos, the LGBTQ people, and other marginalized and oppressed people. When did it become acceptable for these representatives and the Wisconsin Assembly as a whole to support one of the most racist and supremacist governments in the world?
As is seen more often in authoritarian countries, when representatives Ryan Clancy, Darrin Madison, and Lakeshia Myers took a more nuanced position, acknowledging the indigenous Palestinian children and civilians who are suffering, state elector Ann Jacobs threw around the word “antisemitism” and asked for Clancy to be ousted.
As a coalition of 27 organizations, with more joining each day, representing thousands of voters, we stand unequivocally behind the right of our democratically elected representatives to vote their conscience without intimidation and bullying. We commend Representatives Clancy, Madison and Myers for their principled and moral stand and we call upon our elected leaders to demand that food, water, electricity, medicine and safety be available to innocent civilians in Gaza, of whom half are children.
The missing context for what’s happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night-and-day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state — when it was known as the Zionist movement.
Israel didn’t just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettos inside those borders — as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders.
The “settler” project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It’s really Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: “Judaisation,” or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.
Gaza was the largest of the Palestinian reservations created by Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme and the most overcrowded. To stop the inhabitants spilling out, Israel built a fence-barrier in the early 1990s to pen them in. Then when policing became too hard from within the prison, Israel pulled back in 2005 to the outer perimeter barrier.......
Palestinians look for survivors after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12th, 2023. AP Photo/Hatem Ali
ON FRIDAY,Israel ordered the besieged population in the northern half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south, warning that it would soon intensify its attack on the Strip’s upper half. The order has left more than a million people, half of whom are children, frantically attempting to flee amidcontinuingairstrikes, in a walled enclave where no destination is safe. As Palestinian journalist Ruwaida Kamal Amerwrotetoday from Gaza, “refugees from the north are already arriving in Khan Younis, where the missiles never stop and we’re running out of food, water, and power.” The UN haswarnedthat the flight of people from the northern part of Gaza to the south will create “devastating humanitarian consequences” and will “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.” Over the last week, Israel’s violence against Gaza has killed more than 1,800 Palestinians, injured thousands, and displaced more than 400,000 within the strip. And yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahupromisedtoday that what we have seen is “only the beginning.”
Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentiallyexpel them altogetherinto Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism andJewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to boost theIsraeli arms industry, theweaponizationof antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the racist regime of Israeliapartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is happening.
Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” asnotedin the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallantdeclaredit in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation.
The UN Genocide Convention listsfive actsthat fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by itsown account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the USdropped on all of Afghanistanduring record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used includedphosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—thelongestin modern history, inclear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, andbombing their hospitals.
It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using such language. An interviewee on thepro-Netanyahu Channel 14called for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news station, publisheda reportabout left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten” Gaza—have become omnipresent onIsraeli social media. In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.
Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions. In the early 20th century, for example, German colonial occupiers perpetrated a genocide in response to an uprising by the Indigenous Herero and Nama populations in southwest Africa. In 1904, General Lothar von Trotha, the German military commander, issued an “extermination order,” justified by the rationale of a “race war.” By 1908, the German authorities had murdered 10,000 Nama, and had achieved their stated goal of “destroying the Herero,” killing 65,000 Herero, 80% of the population. Gallant’s orders on October 9th were no less explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.
Dave Lippman, “The Star of Goliath”: a 24 minute video from 2015 describes some of the history of Palestine.
2023
The missing context for what’s happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night-and-day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state — when it was known as the Zionist movement.
(Credit above: White phosphorus fired by Israeli army to create a smoke screen, is seen on the Israel-Lebanon border in northern Israel, November 12, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
PALESTINIAN MEN WHO WERE ARRESTED DURING THE ISRAELI GROUND INVASION OF NORTHERN GAZA RECEIVE MEDICAL TREATMENT AFTER THEIR RELEASE AT AL-NAJJAR HOSPITAL IN RAFAH, DECEMBER 24, 2023. (PHOTO: © ABED RAHIM KHATIB/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS/APA IMAGES)
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