Leaked doc reveals Israeli military KNEW of Hamas plan to raid and take hostages 2 weeks before Oct 7, Israeli news reports
SOTT, Grace Eliza Goodwin, Business Insider, 2024-06-18
The Israeli military knew about Hamas’ plans to attack southern Israel weeks before October 7 — even how many hostages the militant group planned to capture, according to a report from Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
The Israel Defense Force’s Gaza Division reportedly distributed an internal intelligence document on September 19, 2023, outlining the details of Hamas’ planned raid, according to Kan.
The document, which Kan reportedly saw, states that the IDF had observed Hamas conducting a series of trainings where militant fighters practiced attacking both Israeli military stations and civilian kibbutzim communities.
The IDF also knew, according to the document viewed by Kan, that Hamas trained its units on how to capture hostages and how to guard them once they were taken back to the Gaza Strip.
Comment: The following is a AI dubbed translation of the report: English dub of an Israeli news report about a document the IDF distributed internally on September 19th, 2023, titled “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training” — it described the impending 10/7 attack in close detail, down to the number of hostages and how Hamas planned to handle them. https://x.com/BoltzmannBooty/status/1802780095934796125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1802780095934796125%7Ctwgr%5E03c00f0d7a7896eeb5714ea82f7f7840b511a996%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sott.net%2Fembed%2FrqC_5-5FwJyE6YzTfNGB8znT2Ak
The IDF’s Southern Command and Gaza Division also wrote in the document, according to Kan, that they expected Hamas to take between 200 and 250 hostages. The officials even had intel on how Hamas intended to treat the hostages in certain extreme circumstances and what rules Hamas set for executing hostages, Kan reported.
Comment: The recent hostage ‘rescue’ (and ensuing massacre) reveals that Hamas has been treating the hostages very well.
Israel mistakenly believed, the Times of Israel reported, that Hamas would never be able to get past its high-tech border security — an “Iron Wall” composed of concrete, tunnels, and razor wire, complete with remote-controlled machine guns, that was installed two years before the attack.
That oversight prevented top Israeli intelligence leaders from doing anything about the internal report detailing Hamas’ plans, Kan News reported.
And it wasn’t just a few weeks before October 7 that Israel reportedly knew about Hamas’ plans.
More than a year before the attack, Israel had a 40-page document detailing, play-by-play, exactly how Hamas would attack the southern border, The New York Times reported last year. But, Israel never took Hamas’ plans seriously, assuming the militant group would never get past Israel’s defenses, the Times reported.
Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage, many of whom are still being held in captivity.
The exact number of hostages Hamas took is unclear, but Israel has estimated it was around 240, with about 116 still in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Israel’s subsequent airstrikes and war against Hamas in Gaza have killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, many of whom are women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities…………………………………https://www.sott.net/article/492398-Leaked-doc-reveals-Israeli-military-KNEW-of-Hamas-plan-to-raid-and-take-hostages-2-weeks-before-Oct-7-Israeli-news-reports
Chutzpah: Netanyahu demands Biden give him more genocide weapons “to finish the job a lot faster.”
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 19 June 24
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seething that President Biden withheld one measly shipment of 2,000 lb. bombs Israel uses to obliterate most of Gaza’s 139 square miles. All schools, hospitals, sewage and water infrastructure kaput under Joe’s billions in genocide weapons, and still Netanyahu is not satisfied.
He released a scathing video charging “When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciate the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war. But I also said it is inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel.”
Netanyahu then pivoted to the Good War: “In WWII Churchill told the US, ‘Give us the tools and we’ll do the job…and I say, ‘give us the tools and we will finish the job a lot faster.”
Netanyahu then pivoted to the Good War: “In WWII Churchill told the US, ‘Give us the tools and we’ll do the job…and I say, ‘give us the tools and we will finish the job a lot faster.”
93 Nations Back ICC as Israel Faces Charges for War Crimes in Gaza
A joint statement calls on “all States to ensure full co-operation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, [and] crimes against humanity.”
Common Dreams, JON QUEALLY, Jun 15, 2024
Ninety-three nations on Friday, all them state parties to the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, reiterated their support for the ICC as it assesses an application for arrest warrants of high level Israeli government officials accused of perpetrating war crimes in Gaza.
The 93 countries—including Canada, Bangladesh, Belgium, Ireland, Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Chile, Germany, France, Mongolia, Mexico, New Zealand, and scores of other—cited separate ICC statements defending its mandate for independence and upheld in their joint statement “that the Court, its officials and staff shall carry out their professional duties as international civil servants without intimidation.”
Though neither nation is named in the joint statement, both the United States and Israel have publicly condemned ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan for his May 20 arrest warrant applications for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip.
Khan also submitted arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh for their alleged roles in the October 7 attack on southern Israel. Following Khan’s announcement in May, U.S. President Joe Biden said, “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
In April it was reported that the U.S. government was working behind the scenes to block the ICC from issuing any arrest warrants targeting Israel officials. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is party to the Rome Statute, though the United Nations has recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where the alleged war crimes by the occupying power, Israel, took place…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
With their show of unified support for the ICC and its mandate, the countries said they aim to “contribute to ending impunity for such crimes and preventing their recurrence while defending the progress we have made together to guarantee lasting respect for international humanitarian law, human rights, the of law and the enforcement of international criminal justice.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/icc-war-cimes-gaza
UN: Israel killed own citizens on October 7 under ‘Hannibal Directive’
SOTT, Nicola Smith, The Telegraph, Sat, 15 Jun 2024
The Israeli military likely killed more than a dozen of its own citizens during the October 7 attacks, a United Nations investigation has alleged.
Comment: Bearing in mind the UN is extremely conservative (and even biased in favor of Israel-the West) in its verdicts, this is rather damning; and one would expect that further, even more incriminating, revelations of Israel’s role in Oct 7, its incitement of the attack, and stand down order, are still to come.
The report by the UN commission investigating the attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza documented “strong indications” that the “Hannibal Directive” was used in several instances that day, “harming Israelis at the same time as striking Palestinian militants.”
The directive – officially revoked in 2016 – was put in place to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces who may use them as bargaining chips, allowing troops to open fire even if it caused the death of a comrade.
UN investigators, led by Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, concluded that at least 14 Israeli civilians, including 12-year-old twins and a 68-year-old grandmother, “were likely killed as a result of Israeli security forces fire.”
These specific accusations have not yet been addressed by Israel, but the government angrily rejected the overall report, which accused both Palestinian groups and Israel of committing war crimes. The UN panel also claimed Israel’s conduct of the war included crimes against humanity.
The Israeli government said the report was “reflective of the systematic anti-Israel discrimination of this commission of inquiry“, noting that it had ignored Hamas’s use of civilians as “human shields”.
It has also criticised the commission for “outrageously and repugnantly” drawing a false equivalence between Hamas and the Israeli military in relation to sexual violence.
Comment: Thus far it seems Israel is guilty of using sexual violence as a weapon of war, not Hamas. Moreover, with Israel it’s institutional and systematic: ‘Extermination, torture, starvation, sexual violence’: UN finds Israel guilty of numerous crimes against humanity
The report examines both Hamas’s actions on October 7 and Israel’s military response in Gaza and provides legal analysis that could be used in future criminal proceedings.
The UN commission was denied access to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank and said Israel did not respond to six requests for information. It based its conclusions on remote interviews with survivors and witnesses, satellite imagery, forensic medical records, and open source data.
Buried in the detail are several examples when Israeli civilians may have been intentionally targeted by their own armed forces on the day thousands of armed Hamas terrorists violently attacked the Nova music festival and Kibbutz settlements near the Gaza border.
The investigation’s conclusions on this question, much of which is derived from local media, refer to a video statement by an IDF tank crew which “confirms that at least one individual tank team knowingly applied the ‘Hannibal Directive‘ that day.”
It adds: “In a statement given to an Israeli news channel, a tank driver and commander stated that they targeted two Toyota vehicles with militants and Israelis. This occurred at point 179, close to Kibbutz Nir Oz.”
The commander, who believed his troops could be on the vehicles, was quoted as saying: “I prefer stopping the abduction so they won’t be taken,” although he adds that, to his knowledge, he did not kill any soldiers.
Much of the information at the centre of the “Hannibal Directive” accusation stems from the death of Efrat Katz, 68, some 150m from the Gaza border, and another 13 Israelis who were “likely” killed either by tank shelling or caught in the crossfire after being trapped by terrorists in the house of Pessi Cohen in Kibbutz Be’eri.
In their account of the Be’eri incident, investigators say that about 40 terrorists brought 15 civilians, including twins Liel and Yannai Hetzroni, aged 12, into the house of local resident Pessi Cohen, leading to a standoff with the Yamam police counter-terrorism unit and the IDF.
At 3pm, Hasan Hamduna, the terrorists’ leader, called the Yamam through one of the female hostages, threatening to execute all the abductees unless they were given safe passage to Gaza.
At 4pm, the first large IDF contingency, led by Brig Gen Barak Hiram, arrived at the site.
According to the testimony of a surviving hostage, the Yamam commandos opened fire on the terrorists while seven hostages were in the yard, trapped between them, the report says………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
the Israeli government has discussed far-reaching measures against UN agencies operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including the possible expulsion of staff, reported the Financial Times.
Bubbling tensions spiked last week after António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, added Israel’s military to a list of countries and organisations that fail to protect children in conflict – a move the Israeli ambassador to the UN described as “shameful.” https://www.sott.net/article/492277-UN-Israel-killed-own-citizens-on-October-7-under-Hannibal-Directive
‘Immense’ scale of Gaza killings amount to crime against humanity, UN inquiry says
Emma Farge, Wed 12 June 2024 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/news/immense-scale-gaza-killings-amount-070247585.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc290dC5uZXQv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE8HPcr-FwxjYBWBJjOvPs18KXTim4RNcN-godsX5YX41fMC7lw_jrtVU1-MxuWmywfp-JHc32RWkZntx35DRzp2lMCfrDUJBO9ZfyUj4cQQq1esBhASwVICNpPKfwUP3lrA83XfKI-Wh39AA2ZFjDPO2WQdeLFwaXz4qUyEPAva
GENEVA (Reuters) – Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a U.N. inquiry found on Wednesday, saying that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses.
The findings were from two parallel reports, one focusing on the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and another on Israel’s military response, published by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI), which has an unusually broad mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel does not cooperate with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The COI says Israel obstructs its work and prevented investigators from accessing both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the U.N. in Geneva rejected the findings. “The COI has once again proven that its actions are all in the service of a narrow-led political agenda against Israel,” said Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva.
Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By Israel’s count more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage in the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks that sparked a military retaliation in Gaza that has since killed over 37,000 people, by Palestinian tallies.
The reports, which cover the conflict through to end-December, found that both sides committed war crimes including torture; murder or willful killing; outrages upon personal dignity; and inhuman or cruel treatment.
Israel also committed additional war crimes including starvation as a method of warfare, it said, saying Israel not only failed to provide essential supplies like food, water, shelter and medicine to Gazans but “acted to prevent the supply of those necessities by anyone else”.
Some of the war crimes such as murder also constituted crimes against humanity by Israel, the COI statement said, using a term reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.
“The immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precautions,” the COI statement said.
Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such U.N.-mandated bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn on by the International Criminal Court.
MASS KILLINGS, SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND HUMILIATION
The COI’s findings are based on interviews with victims and witnesses, hundreds of submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports and verified open-source information.
Among the findings in the 59-page report on the Oct. 7 attacks, the commission verified four incidents of mass killings in public shelters which it said suggests militants had “standing operational instructions”. It also identified “a pattern of sexual violence” by Palestinian armed groups but could not independently verify reports of rape.
The longer 126-page Gaza report said Israel’s use of weapons such as MK84 guided bombs with a large destructive capacity in urban areas were incompatible with international humanitarian law “as they cannot adequately or accurately discriminate between the intended military targets and civilian objects”.
It also said Palestinian men and boys were subject to the crime against humanity of gender persecution, citing cases where victims were forced to strip naked in public in moves “intended to inflict severe humiliation”.
The findings will be discussed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
The COI composed of three independent experts including its chair South African former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay was set up in 2021 by the Geneva council. Unusually, it has an open-ended mandate — a fact criticised by both Israel and some of its allies.
Israel committed crime of ‘extermination’ in Gaza, says UN investigation
Commission accuses Israel and Hamas of both engaging in acts of torture and sexual violence
By MEE staff, 12 June 2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-committed-crime-extermination-gaza-says-un-body
Israel is guilty of a committing the crime of “extermination” in Gaza, as well as the crimes of sexual violence, torture, and starvation as a weapon of war, along with other war crimes and crimes against humanity, UN investigators have found.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel also said Palestinian groups were guilty of war crimes, particularly over the taking of hostages.
The report covers the period between the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities and 31 December. During those 12 weeks Israel began a ferocious war on the Gaza Strip that has now killed more than 37,000 people.
Among the war crimes that the COI said Israel was guilty of since 7 October were:
- Extermination
- Gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys
- Murder
- Forcible transfer
- Torture
- Inhuman and cruel treatment
It also found that Israeli security forces had enforced “public stripping and nudity intended to humiliate the community at large and accentuate the subordination of an occupied people.”
“It is imperative that all those who have committed crimes be held accountable,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the commission.
“The only way to stop the recurring cycles of violence, including aggression and retribution by both sides, is to ensure strict adherence to international law.”
Pillay said Israel must “immediately stop its military operations and attacks in Gaza, including the assault on Rafah”.
The report also found widespread abuses by Palestinian armed groups, including torture, hostage-taking and acts of gender-based and sexual violence against civilians and security personnel.
“Hamas and Palestinian armed groups must immediately cease rocket attacks and release all hostages,” said Pillay.
“The taking of hostages constitutes a war crime.”
Israel does not cooperate with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias.
The COI says Israel obstructs its work and prevented investigators from accessing both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel condemned the report and accused the commission of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination”.
The COI “has once again proven that its actions are all in the service of a narrow-led political agenda against Israel”, said Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
Hamas did not immediately comment.
Famine risk
Rights groups have warned that the blocking of aid combined with the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure means there is a high risk of famine.
A new food security report issued last week by an independent group of experts known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or Fews Net, warned that it is possible Gaza has suffered famine since April, and this assessment is likely to continue until July at least, “if there is not a fundamental change in how food assistance is distributed and accessed” after it enters the enclave.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to block the Rafah crossing with Egypt and restrict aid entry via the Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza.
On Tuesday, UN Relief chief Martin Griffiths posted on X that in Gaza “delivering aid has become almost impossible”. He called for an immediate reopening of all border crossings, and safe and unimpeded access.
On 29 May, Palestinian NGOs and professional unions declared that the besieged Gaza Strip is now a “famine-stricken zone”, at a conference held in Ramallah by Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
He said the deteriorating situation in Gaza is made worse by the “ruthless, merciless bombardment by the Israeli warplanes”.
The head of Gaza’s media office, Salama Marouf, has also said the threat of famine has returned to northern Gaza as Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid from all crossings.
He added that relief efforts remain well below the minimum needs.
‘I heard all of my friends’ last breath’: Testimonies from the Nuseirat massacre
The Israeli massacre in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp killed over 270 Palestinians and injured many more. Survivors say the horrors they witnessed will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
BY TAREQ S. HAJJAJ https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/i-heard-all-of-my-friends-last-breath-testimonies-from-the-nuseirat-massacre/
The Israeli massacre in the Nuseirat camp to liberate four Israeli prisoners held by resistance factions in the Gaza Strip started at 11:00 in the morning on June 8. Although the scenes of Palestinians running for safety may have seemed sadly familiar, this invasion was different from others that have been carried out across the Gaza Strip.
This time, the Israeli military wore civilian clothes, rode in Palestinian cars, and moved among the people in disguise. There were no warnings to evacuate, or orders from the army to move elsewhere, and people were surprised by the Israeli special forces and tanks. A large number of special forces hidden among the people only revealed themselves once the deadly operation began as other special forces stormed the area traveling in cars loaded with luggage, the same luggage that the displaced people carry with them, such as mattresses, pillows, blankets, and bags. When the Palestinians detected them, the soldiers quickly called for support, and helicopters, fighter planes, artillery, and tanks descended. Reconnaissance aircraft and foot solders then began committing massacres against the civilian population.
The intensity of shelling and gunfire soon warned the residents that a massacre was unfolding. They left their homes and took to the streets running in search of safety, which could not be found.
The Israeli operation killed 274 Palestinians, including 64 children, and injured 689 Palestinians in total. “Some of the bodies that arrived at the hospital were body parts, as well as dismembered bodies,” the Gaza Ministry of Health reported when announcing the casualty numbers.
As the world celebrates the liberation of four Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip, and the media focuses on their lives, freedom, and the happiness of their families there is barely a mention of the number of Palestinian casualties or consideration that each of those killed are also leaving behind a bereaved family.
Issam Hajjaj, 27, survived the massacre and spoke to Mondoweiss. “We were running away from bombing and killing. In all directions, there was either bombing, an Israeli tank, or Israeli gunmen shooting at anyone in their path,” he explained. “While we were running away from death, I saw dismembered bodies on the road as a result of the bombing, and I saw those who left their loved ones under the rubble and fled to save the rest of the family.”
“We did not know from which direction death would come for us.”
Anatomy of a massacre
Following the attack the Israeli army announced that the element of surprise had been crucial. This is why the military operation took place during daylight hours and in a densely populated area. This is also why there was such a high number of Palestinian casualties.
Hajjaj says that within minutes of the invasion starting, Israeli forces surrounded the targeted location from all sides and did not leave any route for people to escape except one road, Al-Zuhur Road connecting Nuseirat and Deir Al-Balah. However, just at the same time that the Nuseirat massacre took place, people near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah were fleeing to Nuseirat, and people were using this street to arrive. The intense crowding in the street during the continuous bombing spread panic, and bodies soon began to fly as a result of the direct targeting of everything in that area.
“During our escape, we saw bodies being loaded into cars heading to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Women were screaming in the streets, and children were crying and screaming,” Hajjaj recounted. “I saw a family that was fleeing together. A shell fell on the father and killed him in front of his wife and young daughter. After the mother got up and carried her daughter, she discovered that her husband was killed; she left him on the ground and fled to save her daughter and herself.”
Hajjaj explained that the targeted location was two buildings near Al Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp, but to reach these two buildings, the Israeli army destroyed an entire residential square. He says that while the Israeli army liberated more than four hostages, the intensity of fire from the Palestinian resistance stopped them from getting out more captives.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, seemed to confirm this account in a video it published declaring that three Israeli prisoners were killed by the Israeli bombing of the Nuseirat camp.
“We inform you that in exchange for these, your army killed three prisoners in the same camp, one of whom held American citizenship,” Al-Qassam announced in the video. The resistance group stressed that the remaining Israeli prisoners would not be liberated until the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons were freed as well.
Several Palestinians published photos and video from the scene in Nuseirat that confirmed the firsthand accounts collected by Mondoweiss showing an Israeli special force vehicle entering the camp at the beginning of the invasion which was followed by indiscriminate bombing as a form of support cover. Other videos show a car loaded with luggage entering the Block 5 area in the Nuseirat camp and killing a person at the door of one of the buildings. Israeli forces then used iron ladders to reach the upper floors, as shown in one of the pictures that spread on social media. Other details of the invasion are still being established. Many on social media have circulated photos that seem to indicate the floating pier constructed by the United States on the Gaza coast was used as a launching point for the operation, a claim the U.S. Central Command denied.
Clashes continued for more than three hours. During this time, the Israeli army used excessive force to demolish homes and kill hundreds of residents in the vicinity of the operation.
“I did not think for a moment that I might survive”
Tawfiq Abu Youssef, an 11-year-old child, sits in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis where he was referred to for treatment. His face is bloodied and his eyes are swollen blue after he was pulled from under the rubble of their home in Nuseirat. He says he doesn’t know how he escaped death.
“Suddenly, the situation in the area changed, and people started running in fear, saying that special forces had stormed the area,” the boy recounted to Mondoweiss. “All of this was happening in front of our house, and we were stuck inside under fire and bombing. We tried to get out, but drones opened fire on us until the house was bombed and fell over our heads.”
“Before our house was bombed, we saw people in the street across from our house on the ground cut up. We saw missiles hitting the people fleeing in the streets, how they cut them off, and how the planes bombed everything moving in the streets – cars and people. The street was full of people, and suddenly, all of them… They were on the ground, and smoke and blood filled the place. Everywhere we looked, shelling and shrapnel were flying.”
As Tawfiq leaned his back against the hospital wall and sat on the floor to receive treatment, he said that he did not expect to survive this massacre. The scenes he saw were too difficult to believe.
“I stayed under the rubble for hours. I did not think for a moment that I might survive and see life again. I had lived through death enough while I was under the rubble. That was death. I do not think I will forget or get over these moments.”
The operation was carried out near a central market, where Amjad Abu Laban, 43, was selling some food items on the road. He survived death but suffered various injuries to his hand and foot.
He says that everything started at once: planes, tanks, shooting, and people were in the middle of bombing and death and did not know how to react or where to turn.
“Intense bombardment began in several areas in front of us, around us, and behind us, and people began falling to the ground by the dozens near Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp. Before our eyes, we saw bodies being torn apart and scattered on the roads, and we saw soldiers hidden in civilian clothes and in people’s cars running and killing everyone they met on their way without distinguishing between a child, a woman, a young person, or an old person. We saw the bodies of our brothers cut up, without heads, lying on the ground,” Abu Laban told Mondoweiss.
“These massacres that occurred before my eyes cannot be described.”
In the same hospital, Mahmoud Al-Hawar, 27, lies on his back as a result of an injury to his leg. Al-Hawar witnessed the massacre as he bravely attempted to save his family and neighbors from the bombing.
“The planes bombed our neighbors’ house, and there was a girl under the rubble screaming to be saved. I went with my friends to try to save her, but the rubble was heavy, and we could not dig her out or even lift it to reach that girl, so we waited until the civil defense team arrived. A large number of young men gathered to try to rescue them. But the planes bombed us,” he told Mondoweiss.
Al-Hawar recounted that he felt the missile hit him and his group of friends and they were thrown to the ground. Minutes later, Mahmoud regained consciousness and found himself covered in blood and saw his friends next to him, on the verge of death.
“Before we were bombed, if I told you that I saw more than 10 drones above our heads, you would not believe it. We were looking at the sky and did not know what was happening.”
After the bombing, Al-Hawar tried to stand up to save himself and his friends. “I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t. I was covered in blood. I looked at my leg and it was cut off. I looked at my best friend next to me, and I found him taking his last breath.”
Their injuries were all severe, and when someone arrived who could take them to the hospital, the five friends were placed on top of each other in a small transport truck, with Al-Hawar underneath them all.
“I was in pain from my injury, but I was feeling more pain because I could hear my friends pronouncing their martyrdom and taking their last breaths. All my friends were dying above me, and I was hearing and feeling everything. They were all killed. Some of them were martyred on the road before my eyes, and some of them died later.”
Al-Hawar agreed that the scenes he saw of the dead in the streets will never be forgotten. “I have not slept since the incident. I cannot sleep. I cannot forget anything I witnessed and saw. I cannot forget the people who were running in panic and fear, searching for their relatives and families amidst the destruction and dismembered bodies.”
Rescue operations continue
Rescue teams are still working in Nuseirat with limited capabilities in an attempt to recover the bodies that remained under the rubble. Many residents remain missing due to the massive bombing in the area, and the many homes that were demolished, some on top of their residents. Many others were killed in the market as they tried to meet the needs of their families.
Anees Ghanima, an activist in the Nusreiat refugee camp, summarized the senseless killing on social media, ““This is what happens when we say that we are at risk of being killed at any moment. Imagine that most of those who just left were only in the market, trying to meet their families’ needs. Put yourself in the place of the child who spent all night deceiving his mother to buy him some necessities, and she was killed today during raids. How could we tell him about peace in this world?”
Hassan Sleieh contributed to this report.
US Drone Flights Over Gaza Supported Israeli Operation That Killed Over 200 Palestinians in Nuseirat
A team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based in Israel assisted in the operation
by Dave DeCamp June 9, 2024 , https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/09/us-drone-flights-over-gaza-supported-israeli-operation-that-killed-over-200-palestinians-in-nuseirat/
Israel received intelligence support from 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 US began flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza days after October 7 and deployed special operations forces to Israel, demonstrating that US military support for Israel goes beyond providing weapons.
The Washington Post reported that 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 residents said the Israeli special forces who carried out the raid were 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.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 274 Palestinians were killed in the attack on Nuseirat, and 678 were wounded. Gaza’s Media Office said 64 of the dead were children, and 57 were women. The total death toll in Gaza since October 7 has 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 group released a video of three corpses, but they were unidentifiable.
Gaza has become a humanitarian catastrophe and Israel will have to answer tough questions
By global affairs editor John Lyons, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-10/israel-tough-questions-war-in-gaza/103956848?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=twitter&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
“Frozen“ children — it’s an unusual description of an appalling reality.
They’re the words Sydney clinical psychologist Scarlett Wong used after a recent trip to Gaza with Doctors Without Borders.
“When you see a starving child, they are apathetic, they have no response,” she told SBS News. “This is the kind of thing we were seeing from a medical view … children have become frozen, with no emotion, and apathetic.”
The situation, Dr Wong said, was “the worst humanitarian disaster I have ever seen”.
Gaza has become one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time. The UN’s World Food Programme has said parts of Gaza are now gripped by “a full-blown famine”.
One of the few countries denying this is Israel. Not only is there not a famine, said Ron Dermer, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, but there is an abundance of food.
He told a startled Yalda Hakim on Sky UK recently that there were in fact “bustling markets” with fruit and vegetables.
Dermer’s claim defies all available evidence. Given the Israeli army has drones flying constantly across the tiny enclave, Dermer could have provided photographs of the “bustling markets”. Where are the photos?
According to Foreign Policy magazine, 30 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been bombed — many repeatedly — even while medical staff, patients and civilians seeking shelter remained inside. Satellite imagery shows vast sections of Gaza in rubble.
The Wall Street Journal reported that from October 7 to December 15, Israel dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on Gaza. This means that, on average, Israel hit every square kilometre of Gaza with 79 bombs, munitions or shells.
After just nine weeks of the war, the newspaper said the destruction of homes, schools and other buildings resembled “some of the most devastating campaigns in modern history”.
When the war does finish, the rebuilding of Gaza could take a generation. The Washington Post reported that the head of the UN’s Mine Action Program, Mungo Birch, said the number of unexploded missiles and bombs lying under the rubble was “unprecedented” since World War II and that Gaza was now the site of about 37 million tons of rubble — more than what had been generated across all of Ukraine during Russia’s war — and 800,000 tons of asbestos and other contaminants.
Has the response been proportional?
Over the weekend, Israel rescued four hostages captured on October 7 from a heavily populated refugee camp. Gazan authorities said at least 210 Palestinians were killed and 400 wounded during the rescue, which involved heavy bombardment.
Hamas has had its day of reckoning; the videos from October 7 would be, for any reasonable observer, proof of atrocities and war crimes. The videos and photos not released to the public are even more appalling. Hamas has kept hostages for more than eight months.
But Israel’s day of reckoning for its eight-month-long response is still to come. The question is, has its response been proportional?
Every country that engages in war has a day, or years, of reckoning. America had such a day after the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Australia has had — and continues to have — days of reckoning after its involvement in Afghanistan, with continuing investigations into possible war crimes.
Israel will argue that for self-defence it needed to ensure that Hamas was never again in a position to commit an attack. They will argue that throughout the war, Hamas has used civilians as human shields and that, therefore, a large number of civilians were killed.
But there will be very specific allegations that Israel will be under pressure to answer. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported this week that the Israeli military has been using white phosphorous in Gaza and south Lebanon. HRW noted that white phosphorous causes severe burns, often down to the bone, and burns to only 10 per cent of the body are often fatal. It said it can cause respiratory damage and organ failure.
“Using airburst white phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas and otherwise does not meet this legal requirement to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm,” the group said.
The HRW report also referenced the Israel-Lebanon border. It said Israel had engaged in “widespread” use of white phosphorous since October, including at least five municipalities where white phosphorous munitions were unlawfully airburst over populated residential areas. It said Lebanon should turn to the International Criminal Court and enable the prosecution of grave international crimes.
The ABC put these allegations to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who said that like many western militaries, the IDF possesses “smoke-screen shells that include white phosphorous that are legal under international law”.
“These shells are used by the IDF for creating smoke screens and not for targeting or causing fires and are not defined under law as incendiary weapons.”
Tough questions are being asked
As the war drags on, some media outlets are increasingly asking difficult questions of Israel.
CNN has conducted a major investigation of one of Israel’s “black site” prison facilities, where they claimed systemic torture of hundreds of Palestinians taken from Gaza is occurring.
The US media outlet spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers from the facility who revealed atrocities ranging from doctors amputating prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing and medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics, which earned the facility a reputation for being “a paradise for interns” and a place “where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot”.
One medic from the facility said beatings of Palestinians were not done to gather intelligence but out of revenge for the October 7 attack.
He said he was ordered to perform medical procedures on Palestinians for which he was not qualified: “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise.”
When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’
ROBIN ANDERSEN, https://fair.org/home/when-israel-burned-refugees-alive-establishment-media-called-it-a-tragic-accident/ 10 June 24
As the world watched on social media and responded in outrage, US corporate media, once again, provided cover for the perpetrators of Israel’s genocide.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Israel bombed starving Gazan refugees crowded in tents in Rafah, where Israel had told them to go. As Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch, 5/31/24) wrote, leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before told them to go to “Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” an area set up by the UNRWA refugee agency and designated a UN humanitarian safe zone. The leaflet added, “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”
Nevertheless, without warning, Israel hit the camp with at least eight missiles spreading fire though the encampment of plastic tents (Quds News, 5/26/24). Some refugees burned to death, mostly women and children, leaving them dismembered and charred.
The world saw the terror of the massacre on international and social media. Images showed the area of the strike engulfed in flames as Palestinians screamed, cried, ran for safety and sought to help the injured. “They told people to move there then killed them,” Richard Medhurst (5/28/24) posted.
A boy cries in horror and fear as he watches his father’s tent burn with him inside. A man holds up the body of his charred, now-headless baby, wandering around, not knowing what to do or where to go. An injured, starving child convulses in pain as a medic struggles to find a vein for an IV in her emaciated arm (Al Jazeera, 5/27/24).
Al Jazeera (cited by Quds News, 5/26/24) quoted a Civil Defense source: “We believe that the occupation army used internationally prohibited weapons to target the displaced in Rafah, judging by the size of the fires that erupted at the targeted site.”
US news media reported the tent massacre, some more truthfully than others. But most establishment media repeated Israel’s false claims that it was an accident, weaving disinformation messaging into toned-down descriptions of the scene. With confused syntax, they omitted words like “genocide,” “massacre” and “starvation.” Most left out the language of international law that is best able to explain the unprecedented crimes against humanity that Israel is committing. Corporate reporting left the tent massacre devoid of context and empathy, ignored actions that need to be taken, and ultimately facilitated the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
Embedded with an illegal invasion
When NBC News (5/28/24) reported from Gaza that “Israeli tanks reached the city center for the first time, according to NBC News‘ crew on the ground,” it failed to say that the NBC crew was embedded with Israel’s invading force.
The same sentence continued that Israel was “defying international pressure to halt an offensive that has sent nearly 1 million people fleeing Rafah.” But Israel was not just “defying…pressure”; it was in violation of a direct order from the International Court of Justice ICJ to halt its attack on Rafah. Yet NBC reporters rode into Rafah with an army that was ignoring international law to commit further genocide in Gaza.
Compare NBC’s words to those used by Ramy Abdu (5/26/24), chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, who posted: “In the deadliest response to the International Court of Justice’s decision, the Israeli army targeted a group of displaced persons’ tents in Rafah, killing approximately 60 innocent civilians so far.”
In a post, Francesca Albanese (5/26/24), UN special rapporteur for human rights in Palestine, included International actions that needed to be implemented:
The #GazaGenocide will not easily end without external pressure: Israel must face sanctions, justice, suspension of agreements, trade, partnership and investments, as well as participation in int’l forums.
Such sanctions are rarely discussed in establishment media, but are becoming more urgent, given the New York Times report (5/29/24) that Israel intends to extend the genocide through the remainder of 2024. Though the Times reported on the global outrage and demonstrations against the Rafah massacre, the words “genocide” and “massacre” were not used, nor was there any mention of the possibility of sanctions against Israel.
Targeting ‘Hamas,’ not civilians
Instead of sourcing the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice or any humanitarian actors in the region, NBC (5/28/24) quoted a UN National Security Council spokesperson:
Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians…. But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians.
The dead were connected to Hamas whenever possible. At the bottom of the video, the subtitles listed numbers of dead, followed with, “according to the emergency services in Hamas-run Gaza.”
CounterPunch (5/31/24) quoted Jeremy Konyndyk, former head of disaster relief for US Agency for International Development, saying, “Bombing a tent camp full of displaced people is a clear-cut, full-on war crime” who added, “Even if Hamas troops were present, that does not absolve the IDF of the obligation to protect civilians. It does not turn a tent camp into a free fire zone.”
‘A tragic incident’
On NBC (5/28/24), under the footage of the burning horrors of Rafah, the chyron read, “Netanyahu: Deadly Strike a Tragic Incident.”
In response to Israel’s “accident” claim, journalists, activists and social media users, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, reacted with incredulity and withering criticism of those who asserted it. That was the reaction Axios reporter and CNN analyst Barak Ravid (5/27/24) received when he posted, “Breaking: Netanyahu says the airstrike in Rafah on Sunday was ‘a tragic mistake,’ and adds that it will be investigated.” Katie Halper (5/27/24) replied to Ravid with, “Nice to see you using your position as a journalist to do comms for the Israeli government.”
And Tlaib (5/27/24) commented:
This was intentional. You don’t accidentally kill massive amounts of children and their families over and over again and get to say, “It was a mistake.” Genocidal maniac Netanyahu told us he wants to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
She ended with the question, “When are you going to believe him?”
Sana Saeed (5/27/24), media critic for Al Jazeera+, posted the front pages of four print publications that repeated Netanyahu’s accident claim. The New York Times used “Tragic Accident,” while “Tragic Mistake” was preferred by Time magazine, Forbes and the AP. Over the headlines, she called them “propagandists for genocide masquerading as journalists.”
‘What Israel shared with us’
But CNN (5/28/24) seemed to be vying for Most Valuable Propagandists by elaborating on the unlikely details offered by the IDF to describe the official Israeli version of what happened. It began with Netanyahu speaking to the Knesset: “Despite our best effort not to harm those not involved, unfortunately a tragic error happened last night. We are investigating the case.”
After four paragraphs of details of the massacre—“burned bodies, including those of children, could be seen being pulled by rescuers from the wreckage”—CNN returned to the justifications. The long, breathless chain of details began:
A US official told CNN Monday that Israel had told the Biden administration it used a precision munition to hit a target in Rafah, but that the explosion from the strike ignited a fuel tank nearby and started a fire that engulfed a camp for displaced Palestinians and led to dozens of deaths.
But the claims could not be confirmed; “It’s what Israel shared with us,” the official said.
But the attack on Rafah was in no way a single “precision” “hit,” as numerous sources reported that multiple bombs hit the camp. And Al Jazeera (5/27/24) reported that Israeli drone strikes also hit the Kuwaiti Hospital, the only functioning hospital in the area, killing two medics. It also pointed out that no notice to evacuate came before the strike.
Ever-changing disinformation
In an X post (5/27/24), Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill noted the shifting narrative coming from Israel:
Netanyahu now admits Israel carried out the horrifying bombings that incinerated human beings in Rafah last night and turned a refugee camp into hellfire. I assume all the people who claimed it was actually a failed Hamas rocket attack will now rush to correct themselves.
As we observed after the flour massacre (FAIR.org, 3/22/24), Israel’s string of differing false statements immediately following a massacre is an IDF propaganda strategy designed to confuse and delay. Focusing on changing falsities distracts from the massacre and turns the cameras away from the horrible images of US-supplied weapons slaughter. In this way, massacres become normalized.
Repeating and discussing the ever-changing Israeli disinformation of denial, discussing weapons and official statements, also allows US corporate media to avoid easily observed patterns of Israel’s ongoing massacres, in addition to drawing public attention away from the suffering. But on social media, the raw footage and cries of outrage by users indicate that the manufactured emotional distance collapses online.
Some users expressed extreme distress after prolonged viewing of such imagery. One Palestinian organizer (5/27/24) said:
I’m shaking uncontrollably since last night. I can’t get the beheaded baby that was burned alive. The woman’s screaming out of my head. The decomposed bodies of babies out of my head. The girl whose body was stuck to a wall. Hind’s final message to PRCS…. And now. How do you watch all this and not feel your soul dead?
The daughter of Palestinian refugees posted (5/27/24):
The flour massacre, the tents massacre, the hospital massacre, the refugee camp massacre, the “safe corridor” massacre, the endless massacres, in homes, on the streets, in tents, on foot— eight months of massacre after massacre after massacre.
Another user (5/27/24) asked, “Why do so many Israeli mistakes involve launching multiple missiles at people they’ve assured are in safe zones?”
‘Willful media blackout’
It was the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (2/29/24) that exposed US corporate media reporting as repeated propaganda in a piece titled, “In Netanyahu’s Israel, the Rafah Horror Was Neither ‘a Mishap’ nor Exceptional.” The editorial scoffed at the use of “tragic mishap” to describe the “horrific incident.” It observed that “it took Netanyahu 20 hours to produce the disgraceful statement, which, as usual, lacked any shred of regret over the death of ‘noncombatants.’”
Haaretz derided the “willful media blackout regarding the scope of death and destruction over the last eight months.” Skeptical about the assertion that “it was not expected to cause damage to noncombatant civilians,” the paper observed that, if true, “this involves an ongoing failure at the strategic level.”
By May 29, US corporate media began to report extensively that the Israeli bombs dropped on Rafah that burned Palestinian refugees alive were made in the US. A munitions fragment was filmed by Palestinian journalist Alam Sadeq, and was posted on X (5/27/24) by former US Army explosive expert Trevor Ball two days earlier. Much was made of the fact that the ordinance was smaller than the usual 2,000-pound bombs used to destroy Gaza, and were the preferred bombs the Biden administration had sent to Israel.
As the New York Times (5/29/24) put it, “US officials have been pushing Israel to use more of this type of bomb, which they say can reduce civilian casualties.” The lengthy report included a drawing of the bomb, the details of its manufacture, and assertions that its use by Israel indicated they tried to kill fewer civilians. Gone were any mention of the “tragic mistake,” and the “exploded fuel tank,” forgotten as yesterday’s fake news.
But a lengthy back-and-forth about how the fire could have started failed to point out the obvious, which comes only at the very end when a retired US Air Force sergeant observes, “When you use a weapon that’s intended as precision and low–collateral damage in an area where civilians are saturated, it really negates that intended use.”
As Israel’s atrocities continue to mount in Gaza, the LA Progressive (6/7/24) wrote that though Biden claimed to care about the loss of civilian life in Gaza, and that an Israeli attacked on Rafah would be a “red line,” “events of the past weeks have demonstrated that none of these claims are in fact true.” It added that a month ago, Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement “that looked a lot like the ceasefire agreement now being promoted by the Biden administration,” but Israel responded by rejecting that agreement as well.
In addition, Israel closed off the border area between Israel and Egypt, cutting off any aid or supplies from coming into famine-ravaged Gaza. The authors concluded, “What has transpired is a horrifying series of massacres against civilians, which the Biden administration continues to try to downplay, excuse and explain away.”
Over the last eight months, US establishment media have helped Biden “explain away” such atrocities. They have not stopped repeating Israel’s propaganda, and have acted as willing conduits for Israeli disinformation. It is past time they stopped doing so, and started reporting on what is actually happening on the ground in Gaza, not through the eyes of the IDF.
Israel kills over 200 Palestinians to rescue 4 captives; U.S. allegedly involved in operation
At least 210 Palestinians were killed and 400 others were injured in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday after Israeli forces carried out a “rescue operation” to retrieve four captives. Reports of U.S. involvement in the operation have sparked backlash.
BY MONDOWEISS PALESTINE BUREAU
At least 210 Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others were injured on Saturday in the central Gaza Strip, in what Israel is celebrating as a “heroic” military operation to rescue four Israeli captives that were being held in Gaza.
Palestinian media reported intense bombardment in the early afternoon local time in various areas in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Video footage from the main market in the Nuseirat refugee camp showed crowds of Palestinian civilians fleeing under the sound of heavy artillery fire.
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif reported that Israeli forces “infiltrated” the Nuseirat refugee camp in trucks disguised as humanitarian aid trucks.
The Gaza government media office said in a statement that Israeli forces launched an “unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp” directly targeting civilians, and that ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach the area and evacuate the wounded due to the intensity of the bombing.
The media office added that according to its count, at least 210 Palestinians were killed and an estimated 400 others were injured during the Israeli operation.
Video footage published on social media showed dozens of bodies of men, women and children lying in the streets in the Nuseirat area, as well as bloodied and injured civilians being rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
Al Jazeera quoted Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan with Doctors Without Borders as saying the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital “is a complete bloodbath … It looks like a slaughterhouse.”
“The images and videos that I’ve received show patients lying everywhere in pools of blood … their limbs have been blown off,” she told Al Jazeera, adding “That is what a massacre looks like.”
As the death toll from the central Gaza Strip continued to rise, Israeli reports emerged that four Israeli captives were rescued in the operation and transferred back to Israel. The four captives were identified as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They were all reportedly taken on October 7th from the Nova Music festival in southern Israel close to the Gaza border.
According to Israeli media, the four captives were found in good health, and were transferred to a hospital in Israel where they were reunited with their families. One member of the Israeli special forces was killed during the attack.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari as saying the captives were “rescued under fire, and that during the operation the IDF attacked from the air, sea, and land in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas in the center of the Gaza Strip.”
Haaretz added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved the operation on Thursday evening. Netanyahu hailed the operation as “successful,” while Gallant reportedly described it as “one of the heroic operations he had seen in all his years in the defense establishment, according to Israeli media…………………………………………………….
Reports of US involvement in Nuseirat massacre
As news flooded on the scale of the massacre in central Gaza, and of celebrations in Israel at the release of the four captives, reports emerged of alleged U.S. involvement in the operation.
Axios, citing a US administration official, reported that “the U.S. hostage cell in Israel supported the effort to rescue the four hostages.”
Of the operation, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said: “The United States is supporting all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens. This includes through ongoing negotiations or other means.”
Some reports claimed that American forces were involved in the operation on the ground, and that the humanitarian aid trucks that were reportedly used to disguise the entry of special forces into Nuseirat departed from the U.S. built humanitarian pier off the Gaza coast. Mondoweiss has not been able to independently verify some of these reports. ………………………………………more https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/israel-kills-over-200-palestinians-to-rescue-4-captives-u-s-allegedly-involved-in-operation/
‘Historic, But So, So Late’: Israel Added to UN’s Child-Killing ‘List of Shame’
“It took a genocide that killed 15,000 children and maimed and scarred thousands more but the U.N. has finally and rightly added Israel to its List of Shame,” said one Palestinian observer.
Brett Wilkins, 7 June 24, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-killing-children-2668478068
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres informed Israel on Friday that, for the first time, it is being added to the so-called “List of Shame” of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts, a decision that infuriated Israeli officials but was welcomed by human rights defenders as long overdue.
The Secretary-General Office’s annual Children and Armed Conflict report—which is likely to be released publicly later this month—has included countries and militant groups such as Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Iraq, Islamic State, Myanmar, Russia, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. This is believed to be the first time the list has included a nation hailed by Western governments as a democracy.
“It took a genocide that killed 15,000 children and maimed and scarred thousands more but the U.N. has finally and rightly added Israel to its List of Shame,” Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh said on social media. “Arms embargo NOW!”
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the U.N. has put itself on the blacklist of history today when it joined the supporters of the Hamas murderers.”
“The IDF is the most moral army in the world and no delusional decision by the U.N. will change that,” added the prime minister, who International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking to arrest along with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes including extermination.
This year’s 2024 List of Shame will also include Hamas, which led the October 7 attack that left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead, including 38 children. Around 30 minors were also kidnapped by Hamas, all of whom are believed to have been freed. Khan wants to arrest three leaders of Hamas, whose members are accused of extermination, rape, and other crimes.
In retaliation, Israel launched an assault and siege on theGaza Strip—now on its 244th day—killing more than 36,700 Palestinians including at least 15,000 minors, according to Palestinian and international agencies. Some children have allegedly been sexually abused and executedby Israeli troops.
More children were killed in Gaza in the first four months of the war than in four years of conflict worldwide, in what Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, called a “war on children… their childhood, and their future.”
There are also tens of thousands of children among the more than 83,000 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s bombardment and invasion, but there’s no safe place for them to go.
The Israeli blockade of Gaza and obliteration of its healthcare infrastructure have exacerbated what the U.N.’s top food official has called a “full-blown famine” in the north and widespread starvation throughout the strip. Dozens of children have starved to death.
Israel’s conduct in the war is under investigation by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in a genocide case brought by South Africa and supported by more than 30 other nations and regional blocs.
The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calls Gaza the most dangerous place in the world for children. The perils are not only physical; the annihilation of Gaza has also wrought tremendous psychological damage upon its children, many of whom have survived multiple Israeli campaigns.
According to UNICEF, more than 17,000 Gazan children are now orphans, with some having lost their entire families to Israeli attacks. International medical workers have coined a new acronym for these children: WCNSF, or, wounded child, no surviving family.
Everything About Israel Is Fake
Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots. That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.
Israel is so fake that its far right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir has been stoking religious tensions by encouraging militant Zionists to pray on the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa. This is an illustration of how phony Israel and its political ideology are because Jews were historically prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount under Jewish law; a sign placed there in 1967 and still upheld by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate reads, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.” It’s just this weird, evangelical Christian-like thing that Zionists have started doing in contravention of their own traditions and religious texts to advance their nationalist agendas.
Journalist Dan Cohen explains on Twitter:
“‘Prayer’ on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone ‘pray’ there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use.
“Ben Gvir publicly announced this in order to provoke a reaction to use as a pretext to restrict and expel Muslims from the site, explode Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expand the regional war.
“Ben Gvir holds Netanyahu hostage. Together, they’re leading Israel to self-destruction.”
There’s no authentic spirituality in such behavior. It has no roots. No depth. No connection. It’s the product of busy minds with modern agendas, with nothing more to it than that.
Israel is so fake that Zionists artificially resurrected a dead language in order for its people to have a common “native” tongue for them to speak, so that they could all LARP as indigenous middle easterners together in their phony, synthetic country.
Israel has no real culture of its own; it’s all a mixture of (A) organic Jewish culture brought in from other parts of the world by the Jewish diaspora, (B) culture that was stolen from Palestinians (see “Israeli food”), and (C) the culture of indoctrinated genocidal hatred that is interwoven with the fabric of modern Zionism. The way Israel has become a Mecca of electronic dance music points clearly to an aching cultural void that its people are trying desperately to fill with empty synthetic pop fluff.
Even international support for Israel is fake, manufactured astroturf that has to be enforced from the top down, because it would never organically occur to anyone that Israel is something that should be supported.
The phenomenally influential Israel lobby is used to push pro-Israel foreign policy in powerful western governments like Washington and London. Just yesterday US Representative Thomas Massie told Tucker Carlson that every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, who he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” with regard to lawmaking on the subject of Israel.
The Israel lobby exists with the full consent of the western imperial war machine and its secretive intelligence cartel, because western military support for Israel is also phony and fraudulent. The western empire whose strategic interests directly benefit from violence and radicalism in the middle east pretends it’s constantly expanding its military presence in the region in order to promote stability and protect an important ally, but in reality this military presence simply allows for greater control over crucial resource-rich territories whose populations would otherwise unite to form a powerful bloc acting in their own interests. The Israel lobby is a self-funding consent manufacturer which helps the empire do what it already wants to do.
Support for Israel in the media is also phony and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been finding themselves fighting off scandals due to staff leaks about demands from their executives that they slant their Gaza coverage to benefit the information interests of Israel. Briahna Joy Gray was just fired by The Hill for being critical of Israel as co-host of the show “Rising”, a fate that all mass media employees understand they will share if they are insufficiently supportive of the empire’s favorite ethnostate.
Israel’s support from celebrities is similarly forced. A newly leaked email from influential Hollywood marketing and branding guru Ashlee Margolis instructs her firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.” As we discussed recently, celebrities are also naturally disincentivized from criticizing any aspect of the western empire by the fact that their status is dependent on wealthy people whose wealth is premised upon the imperial status quo.
Support for Israel on social media is likewise notoriously phony. For years Israel has been pioneering the use of social media trolls to swarm Israel’s critics and promote agendas like undermining the BDS movement. After the beginning of the Gaza onslaught Israel spent millions on PR spin via advertising on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and The New York Times has just confirmed earlier reports that Israel has been targeting US lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence their policymaking on Israel.
In truth, nobody really organically supports Israel. If they’re not supporting it because their lobbyists and employers told them to, they’re supporting it because that’s what they were told to support by the leaders of their dopey political ideologies like Zionism, liberalism and conservatism, or by the leaders of their dopey religions like Christian fundamentalism. It’s always something that’s pushed on people from the top down, rather than arising from within themselves due to their own natural interests and ideals.
Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down, and scrambling to pick up things that are falling over, and rotating the set pieces so that they look like real buildings in front of the camera. Without this constant hustle and bustle of propagandizing, lobbying, online influence ops, and nonstop mass military violence, the whole movie set would fall over, and people would see all the film crew members and actors and cameras for what they are.
Clearly, no part of this is sustainable. Clearly, something’s going to have to give. Those set pieces are going to come toppling down sooner or later; it’s just a question of when, and of how high the pile of human corpses needs to be before it happens.
US Bombs Used in Israeli Massacre of 40 in Gaza Refugee Camp
By Sharon Zhang / Truthout June 7, 2024, https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/07/us-bombs-used-in-israeli-massacre-of-40-in-gaza-refugee-camp/
The targeting of the UN school-turned-shelter is a “blatant” violation of international law, one UN official said.
n Israeli bombing that killed 40 Palestinians and wounded 74 sheltering in a UN school-turned-shelter in a refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday was carried out using U.S.-made weapons, an analysis finds.
Fragments of at least two U.S.-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs were found at the scene of the bombing on the Nuseirat refugee camp, CNN found in a review that concluded they were used in the devastating overnight strike.
The bombing, which Gaza officials say killed at least 14 children and wounded 23, is a “blatant” violation of international law, human rights groups have said. International law prohibits targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in war.
“Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law,” said UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. “UNRWA shares the coordinates of all its facilities (including this school) with the Israeli Army and other parties to the conflict. Targeting UN premises or using them for military purposes cannot become the new norm.”
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that the attack is a “suspected war crime.”
If these assessments are correct, this represents direct evidence that U.S. military assistance is being used by Israeli forces to commit war crimes. U.S. weapons have been used in many war crimes committed by Israeli forces in recent months, previous reports have found.
These assessments run contrary to a recent report released by the State Department concluding that it’s “reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons have been used in violation of international law, but that there is not enough direct evidence of Israel’s culpability in slaughtering civilians en masse. If that report had directly concluded that U.S. weapons are being used to commit Israeli war crimes, it would have spurred the U.S. to consider withholding military aid to Israel in accordance with U.S. and international law.
The conclusions of the report raised an uproar. A U.S. State Department official who quit after the release of the report said that its conclusions were fabricated by higher ups in the department to provide cover for U.S. officials working to send Israel yet more aid to be used to commit atrocities against Palestinians.
Eyewitnesses say the attack on the Nuseirat school was horrific, with Israeli forces releasing two bombs on the building that was sheltering 6,000 Palestinians who had been displaced multiple times over the course of Israel’s genocide. At the site of the attack, the smell of blood hangs heavy in the air, reported Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary.
“We were inside the school and suddenly we were bombed, people here turned to pieces on a harsh night … this building housed families and young people, and the shelling took place without warning,” survivor Anas al-Dahouk told Al Jazeera.
The school is one of the many UNRWA facilities that have been targeted by Israeli forces since October. According to Lazzarini, 180 UNRWA buildings have been attacked, killing at least 450 Palestinians in UN facilities alone.
According to the official death toll, Israel’s genocidal assault has killed at least 36,600 Palestinians. But the true death toll is likely far higher, as thousands more Palestinians are missing and presumed to be dead under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel. The count also doesn’t include those who have died for reasons like starvation or illness outside of health facilities in the region.
‘We Want Peace’: Spain Applies to Join ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel
“We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” said the Spanish foreign minister, calling for an end to civilian deaths.
Common Dreams, EDWARD CARVER, Jun 06, 2024
Spain’s foreign minister announced Thursday that the country had applied to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, just over a week after formally recognizing a Palestinian state alongside other European countries.
South Africa brought the case and has led it through its early stages, which culminated on May 24 with the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest court, ordering Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—an order that Israel ignored. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya, and the Palestinians have already applied to join the case, while Chile and Ireland have also announced plans to intervene in support of the case.
We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Thursday in a social media post that included a video of his announcement speech. “To support the work of the court. To avoid more civilian deaths. For the peace.”
“We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,” Albares said, according toThe Associated Press. “We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court.”…………………………………………
Spain is one of several European countries that have recognized a Palestinian state in recent weeks; indeed, Madrid has been central to organizing the European effort. Israel responded by threatening “severe consequences” to nations that recognize Palestine, and it held out a special level of ire for Spanish leaders……………
Spain’s foreign minister announced Thursday that the country had applied to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, just over a week after formally recognizing a Palestinian state alongside other European countries.
South Africa brought the case and has led it through its early stages, which culminated on May 24 with the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest court, ordering Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—an order that Israel ignored. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya, and the Palestinians have already applied to join the case, while Chile and Ireland have also announced plans to intervene in support of the case.
“We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Thursday in a social media post that included a video of his announcement speech. “To support the work of the court. To avoid more civilian deaths. For the peace.”
“We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,” Albares said, according toThe Associated Press. “We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court.”
Albares is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), a center-left party that leads a coalition government. Sumar, a new left-wing party that is the junior partner in the coalition, has been strongly pro-Palestine; the party’s ministers have called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. Podemos, a left-wing party that was part of previous coalitions but now holds only five seats in parliament and has been largely replaced by Sumar, has taken a similarly strong position; its leader had previously called for Spain to back the ICJ genocide case.
The ICJ is one of several international institutions that pro-Palestine governments are using to try to isolate Israel and hold it to account for its ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 36,000 people, mostly women and children, in the last eight months. Israel’s military killed dozens early Thursday by bombing a school where refugees were sheltering. Most of the dead were women and children, the APreported.
Spain is one of several European countries that have recognized a Palestinian state in recent weeks; indeed, Madrid has been central to organizing the European effort. Israel responded by threatening “severe consequences” to nations that recognize Palestine, and it held out a special level of ire for Spanish leaders.
“Hamas thanks you for your service,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote in a message to Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on social media, along with a video that, in Al Jazeera‘s description, “flipped between images of flamenco dancers and apparent scenes of the Palestinian group’s incursion into southern Israel on October 7.”
The move for recognition has widespread support among the Spanish public—78%, based on a Madrid think tank’s survey, according to Al Jazeera………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/spain-genocide-case
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