‘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
Report: Vast Majority of Children Under 5 in Gaza Going Full Days Without Food
Since Israel began its Rafah invasion, the amount of aid entering the region has dropped by two-thirds.
By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT, June 4, 2024, https://truthout.org/articles/report-vast-majority-of-children-under-5-in-gaza-going-full-days-without-food/
The vast majority of children under the age of 5 in Gaza are regularly forced to go at least one full day without eating as Israel’s manufactured famine has intensified in recent weeks, aid groups have reported.
According to a food survey conducted by humanitarian aid groups in May, 85 percent of children under 5 were deprived of food at least one day over a three day period. Official death counts reported by Gaza’s government do not include deaths by starvation; at least 30 children have been recorded starving to death in Gaza so far.
Israel’s starvation campaign has resulted in the rapid spread of famine across the region, which aid groups are warning is worsening by the day as Israel continues its near-total humanitarian aid blockade. According to an Oxfam report released Monday, the risk of famine in Gaza is higher than ever as Israel’s relentless assault and obstruction of aid has made it “virtually impossible” for groups to carry out an aid response.
The UN has reported that, since Israel began its Rafah invasion, the amount of aid entering the region has dropped by two-thirds from the already famine-inducing levels prior to May.
Since May 6, when Israel seized and closed the main humanitarian aid crossing into Gaza, only about eight trucks of aid have entered on average each day — or about 1 percent of the 500 to 600 trucks that the UN has said need to enter each day in order to meet Palestinians’ needs.
On top of the blockade, Israeli forces recently lifted a ban on commercial food deliveries entering Gaza, meaning that commercial deliveries from Israel and the West Bank are now squeezing out aid trucks attempting to enter border crossings.
The food and other supplies, like tents, entering from commercial trucks are then sold for extremely high prices, putting them out of reach for Palestinians already struggling to keep their families alive after months of price gouging and destruction. The Guardian reports that far more commercial trucks are entering because they can pay more to Israeli security guards to enter than groups operating aid trucks.
Two weeks ago, the UN reported that its food and tent storage warehouses in Gaza are empty because of Israel’s blockade; now, families are reporting having to pay $700 just for a basic tent that they would then have to pitch in cemeteries due to overcrowding.
“By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late. When hunger claims many more lives, nobody will be able to deny the horrifying impact of Israel’s deliberate, illegal and cruel obstruction of aid,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Middle East and North Africa director for Oxfam, in a statement. “Obstructing tonnes of food for a malnourished population while waving through caffeine-laced drinks and chocolate is sickening.”
Over a million people have fled Rafah as Israel carries out its invasion, fleeing to nearby Khan Younis, Al-Mawasi and Deir al-Balah, Oxfam reports. As a result, two-thirds of Gaza’s population, or 1.7 million people, have now been forced into an area that’s less than one-fifth of the area of the Gaza strip — an area that Israeli forces have been bombing anyway, despite declaring it to be a safe zone.
Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza is leading to extremely unsanitary and dangerous conditions. In Al-Mawasi, there are only 121 toilets for over 500,000 people, Oxfam says, meaning that there are roughly 4,130 people to each toilet.
Israel is carrying out its blockade and Rafah assault despite the International Court of Justice ordering an end to Israel’s siege of Rafah and an immediate influx of humanitarian aid to Gaza in May in order to stave off the spread of famine and save countless Palestinian lives.
Israel ordered secret campaign to influence US lawmakers – NYT
At its peak, Israel’s influence campaign used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as US students, concerned citizens and local constituents on various social media platforms, including X, Facebook and Instagram, the New York Times reports.
The country allegedly paid $2 million to target American legislators in order to foster support for its war in Gaza
Israel allegedly organized and funded an influence campaign last year targeting the US to drum up support for its ongoing Gaza offensive, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed Israeli officials and documents related to the operation.
The outlet claims that the country’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which is responsible for connecting Jews across the world with the State of Israel, commissioned the covert campaign and allocated some $2 million for the operation, hiring the Tel Aviv political marketing firm Stoic.
The campaign was apparently launched sometime in October, when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) launched its war in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage.
Israel’s subsequent war on Hamas and relentless siege of Gaza has drawn international criticism, including threats of sanctions, as the IDF is estimated to have caused the death of over 36,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health authorities.
At its peak, Israel’s influence campaign used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as US students, concerned citizens and local constituents on various social media platforms, including X, Facebook and Instagram, the New York Times reports.
These accounts were allegedly used to post pro-Israel comments and articles backing West Jerusalem’s position on the war, and were mainly focused on attracting the attention of US lawmakers, primarily Black Democrats, urging them to continue funding the country’s military.
Many of the posts were reportedly generated using the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT. Stoic, which was in charge of the campaign, also reportedly created three fake English-language news sites that predominantly featured pro-Israel articles, often stolen from outlets such as CNN and the Wall Street Journal.
In March, the Israeli government’s campaign was noted by FakeReporter – an Israeli misinformation watchdog. Last week, it was also reported on by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as ChatGPT’s owner OpenAI; both said they had found and disrupted the influence operation.
“Israel’s role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, was quoted as saying by NYT, noting that the fact that Israel “ran an operation that interferes in US politics is extremely irresponsible.”
In a statement to the New York Times, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has denied any involvement in the operation and insisted it has no connection to Stoic.
Meanwhile, FakeReporter has estimated that the fake accounts created through the campaign have accumulated just over 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram. Meta and OpenAI concluded that Israel’s influence operation ultimately failed to have a widespread impact, noting that most of the followers of these fake accounts were likely bots.
TODAY. Time to get real about anti-semitism – the renewed danger
If there’s one group of people to weep for now – it’s the Palestinians, and their terrible sufferings at the hands of Israel.
Another group to weep for is the good, intelligent, Jews.
Who is a Jew, anyway? Judaism is a strong vibrant culture, which includes several strands of religious belief, and even secularism. It’s definitely not an ethnicicity – Jews being found all over the world in shapes and sizes and colours, and nationalities, and not having any distinctive gene.
There’s a strong strand of Jewish culture that is universalist and humanistic – we see its expression today in Jewish Voice for Peace. And these are the Jews to weep for, as they try to bring sanity and humanity into what is going on today.
And what about anti-semitism? What is anti-semitism, anyway? Well, really Semites are peoples of the Middle East, including Jews, Arabs and other historic groups.
But the term is used now to mean prejudice against Jews. And this has a very long history, culminating in the Nazi holocaust.
And now we come to Zionism – the belief Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion, and that Jews have the right to their own State in their ancestral homeland. And that’s Zionist-controlled Israel – and like those other theocracies – Iran and Saudi Arabia – it’s a religious and intolerant State.
What is less well known is that way back in 1933, and later – Zionists collaborated with the Nazis. Rather than defend against the oppressor, they co-operated with them, -(much of this is revealed in newly-released transcripts in the Israel State Archive)
The very real danger now, is that people worldwide are so fed up with the cruelty of Netanyahu’s barbaric regime, that they starting to blame the innocent Jews in their own neighbourhood.
It would seem that the Israeli government doesn’t care at all about this.
What’s Next for Battlefield America? Israel’s High-Tech Military Tactics Point the Way
“I did not know Israel was capturing or recording my face. [But Israel has] been watching us for years from the sky with their drones. They have been watching us gardening and going to schools and kissing our wives. I feel like I have been watched for so long.”—Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet
If you want a glimpse of the next stage of America’s transformation into a police state, look no further than how Israel—a long-time recipient of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S.—uses its high-tech military tactics, surveillance and weaponry to advance its authoritarian agenda.
Military checkpoints. Wall-to-wall mass surveillance. Predictive policing. Aerial surveillance that tracks your movements wherever you go and whatever you do. AI-powered facial recognition and biometric programs carried out with the knowledge or consent of those targeted by it. Cyber-intelligence. Detention centers. Brutal interrogation tactics. Weaponized drones. Combat robots.
We’ve already seen many of these military tactics and technologies deployed on American soil and used against the populace, especially along the border regions, a testament to the heavy influence Israel’s military-industrial complex has had on U.S. policing.
Indeed, Israel has become one of the largest developers and exporters of military weapons and technologies of oppression worldwide.
Journalist Antony Loewenstein has warned that Pegasus, one of Israel’s most invasive pieces of spyware, which allows any government or military intelligence or police department to spy on someone’s phone and get all the information from that phone, has become a favorite tool of oppressive regimes around the world. The FBI and NYPD have also been recipients of the surveillance technology which promises to turn any “target’s smartphone into an intelligence gold mine.”
Yet it’s not just military weapons that Israel is exporting. They’re also helping to transform local police agencies into extensions of the military.
According to The Intercept, thousands of American law enforcement officers frequently travel for training to Israel, “one of the few countries where policing and militarism are even more deeply intertwined than they are here,” as part of an ongoing exchange program that largely flies under the radar of public scrutiny.
A 2018 investigative report concluded that imported military techniques by way of these exchange programs that allow police to study in Israel have changed American policing for the worse. “Upon their return, U.S. law enforcement delegates implement practices learned from Israel’s use of invasive surveillance, blatant racial profiling, and repressive force against dissent,” the report states. “Rather than promoting security for all, these programs facilitate an exchange of methods in state violence and control that endanger us all.”
“At the very least,” notes journalist Matthew Petti, “visits to Israel have helped American police justify more snooping on citizens and stricter secrecy. Critics also assert that Israeli training encourages excessive force.”
Petti documents how the NYPD set up a permanent liaison office in Israel in the wake of 9/11, eventually implementing “one of the first post-9/11 counterterrorism programs that explicitly followed the Israeli model. In 2002, the NYPD tasked a secret ‘Demographics Unit’ with spying on Muslim-American communities. Dedicated ‘mosque crawlers’ infiltrated local Muslim congregations and attempted to bait worshippers with talk of violent revolution.”
That was merely the start of American police forces being trained in martial law by foreign nations under the guise of national security theater. It has all been downhill from there.
As Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who has studied the rise of global policing, explains, “The focus of this training is on riot suppression, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism—all of which are essentially irrelevant or should be irrelevant to the vast majority of police departments. They shouldn’t be suppressing protest, they shouldn’t be engaging in counterinsurgency, and almost none of them face any real threat from terrorism.”
This ongoing transformation of the American homeland into a techno-battlefield tracks unnervingly with the dystopian cinematic visions of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, both of which are set 30 years from now, in the year 2054.
In Minority Report, police agencies harvest intelligence from widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and neighborhood and family snitch programs in order to capture would-be criminals before they can do any damage.
While Blomkamp’s Elysium acts as a vehicle to raise concerns about immigration, access to healthcare, worker’s rights, and socioeconomic stratification, what was most striking was its eerie depiction of how the government will employ technologies such as drones, tasers and biometric scanners to track, target and control the populace, especially dissidents.
With Israel in the driver’s seat and Minority Report and Elysium on the horizon, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine how the American police state will use these emerging technologies to lock down the populace, root out dissidents, and ostensibly establish an “open-air prison” with disconcerting similarities to Israel’s technological occupation of present-day Palestine.
For those who insist that such things are celluloid fantasies with no connection to the present, we offer the following as a warning of the totalitarian future at our doorsteps.
Facial Recognition
Fiction: One of the most jarring scenes in Elysium occurs towards the beginning of the film, when the protagonist Max Da Costa waits to board a bus on his way to work. While standing in line, Max is approached by two large robotic police officers, who quickly scan Max’s biometrics, cross-check his data against government files, and identify him as a former convict in need of close inspection. They demand to search his bag, a request which Max resists, insisting that there is nothing for them to see. The robotic cops respond by manhandling Max, throwing him to the ground, and breaking his arm with a police baton. After determining that Max poses no threat, they leave him on the ground and continue their patrol. Likewise, in Minority Report, police use holographic data screens, city-wide surveillance cameras, dimensional maps and database feeds to monitor the movements of its citizens and preemptively target suspects for interrogation and containment.
Fact: We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, corralled and controlled by technologies that answer to government and corporate rulers. This is exactly how Palestinian poet and New Yorker contributor Mosab Abu Toha found himself, within minutes of passing through an Israeli military checkpoint in Gaza with his wife and children in tow, asked to step out line, only to be blindfolded, handcuffed, interrogated, then imprisoned in an Israeli detention center for two days, beaten and further interrogated. Toha was finally released in what Israeli soldiers chalked up to a “mistake,” yet there was no mistaking the AI-powered facial recognition technology that was used to pull him out of line, identify him, and label him (erroneously) as a person of interest.
Drones
Fiction: In another Elysium scene, Max is hunted by four drones while attempting to elude the authorities. The drones, equipped with x-ray cameras, biometric readers, scanners and weapons, are able to scan whole neighborhoods, identify individuals from a distance—even through buildings, report their findings back to police handlers, pursue a suspect, and target them with tasers and an array of lethal weapons.
Fact: Drones, some deceptively small and yet powerful enough to capture the facial expressions of people hundreds of feet below them, have ushered in a new age of surveillance. Not even those indoors, in the privacy of their homes, will be safe from these aerial spies, which can be equipped with technology capable of peering through walls. In addition to their surveillance capabilities, drones can also be equipped with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, tear gas, and tasers.
Biometric scanners and national IDs
Fiction: Throughout Elysium, citizens are identified, sorted and dealt with by way of various scanning devices that read their biometrics—irises, DNA, etc.—as well as their national ID numbers, imprinted by a laser into their skin. In this way, citizens are tracked, counted, and classified. Likewise, in Minority Report, tiny sensory-guided spider robots converge on a suspected would-be criminal, scan his biometric data and feed it into a central government database. The end result is that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide to escape the government’s all-seeing eyes.
Fact: Given the vast troves of data that various world governments, including Israel and the U.S., is collecting on its citizens and non-citizens alike, we are not far from a future where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. In fact, between the facial recognition technology being handed out to law enforcement, license plate readers being installed on police cruisers, local police creating DNA databases by extracting DNA from non-criminals, including the victims of crimes, and police collecting more and more biometric data such as iris scans, we are approaching the end of anonymity. It won’t be long before police officers will be able to pull up a full biography on any given person instantaneously, including their family and medical history, bank accounts, and personal peccadilloes. It’s already moving in that direction in more authoritarian regimes.
Predictive Policing
Fiction: In Minority Report, John Anderton, Chief of the Department of Pre-Crime, finds himself identified as the next would-be criminal and targeted for preemptive measures by the very technology that he relies on for his predictive policing. Consequently, Anderton finds himself not only attempting to prove his innocence but forced to take drastic measures in order to avoid capture in a surveillance state that uses biometric data and sophisticated computer networks to track its citizens.
Fact: Precrime, which aims to prevent crimes before they happen, has justified the use of widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and snitch programs. As political science professor Anwar Mhajne documents, Israel has used all of these tools in its military engagements with Palestine: deploying AI surveillance and predictive policing systems in Palestinian territories; utilizing facial recognition technology to monitor and regulate the movement of Palestinians; subjecting Palestinians to facial recognition scans at checkpoints, with a color-coded mechanism to dictate who should be allowed to proceed, subjected to further questioning, or detained.
Making the Leap from Fiction to Reality
When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931, he was convinced that there was “still plenty of time” before his dystopian vision became a nightmare reality. It wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his prophecies were coming true far sooner than he had imagined.
Israel’s military influence on the United States, its advances in technological weaponry, and its rigid demand for compliance are pushing us towards a world in chains.
Through its oppressive use of surveillance technology, Israel has erected the world’s first open-air prison, and in the process, has made itself a model for the United States.
What we cannot afford to overlook, however, is the extent to which the American Police State is taking its cues from Israel.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we may not be an occupied territory, but that does not make the electronic concentration camp being erected around us any less of a prison.
To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war
Israel presumably dared to defy the court only because it was sure it had the Biden administration’s backing.
Israel has sought to close down Palestinian legal and human rights groups by designating them as “terrorist organisations”.
Middle East Eye Jonathan Cook, 31 May 2024
The world’s two highest courts have made an implacable enemy of Israel in trying to uphold international law and end Israeli atrocities.
Separate announcements last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should have forced Israel on to the back foot in Gaza.
A panel of judges at the ICJ – sometimes known as the World Court – demanded last Friday that Israel immediately stop its current offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza.
Instead, Israel responded by intensifying its atrocities.
On Sunday, it bombed a supposedly “safe zone” crowded with refugee families forced to flee from the rest of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s rampage for the past eight months.
The air strike set fire to an area crammed with tents, killing dozens of Palestinians, many of whom burnt alive. A video shows a man holding aloft a baby beheaded by the Israeli blast.
Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns.
Israel has destroyed almost all of the medical facilities that could treat Rafah’s wounded, as well as denying entry to basic medical supplies such as painkillers that could ease their torment.
This was precisely the outcome US President Joe Biden warned of months ago when he suggested that an Israeli attack on Rafah would constitute a “red line”.
But the US red line evaporated the moment Israel crossed it. The best Biden’s officials could manage was a mealy-mouthed statement calling the images from Rafah “heart-breaking”.
Such images were soon to be repeated, however. Israel attacked the same area again on Tuesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as its tanks entered the centre of Rafah.
‘A mechanism with teeth’
The World Court’s demand that Israel halt its attack on Rafah came in the wake of its decision in January to put Israel effectively on trial for genocide, a judicial process that could take years to complete.
In the meantime, the ICJ insisted, Israel had to refrain from any actions that risked a genocide of Palestinians. In last week’s ruling, the court strongly implied that the current attack on Rafah might advance just such an agenda.
Israel presumably dared to defy the court only because it was sure it had the Biden administration’s backing.
UN officials, admitting that they had run out of negatives to describe the ever-worsening catastrophe in Gaza, called it “hell on earth”.
Days before the ICJ’s ruling, the wheels of its sister court, the ICC, finally began to turn.
Karim Khan, its chief prosecutor, announced last week that he would be seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders.
Both Israeli leaders are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including attempts to exterminate the population of Gaza through planned starvation.
Israel has been blocking aid deliveries for many months, creating famine, a situation only exacerbated by its recent seizure of a crossing between Egypt and Rafah through which aid was being delivered.
The ICC is a potentially more dangerous judicial mechanism for Israel than the ICJ.
The World Court is likely to take years to reach a judgement on whether Israel has definitively committed a genocide in Gaza – possibly too late to save much of its population.
The ICC, on the other hand, could potentially issue arrest warrants within days or weeks.
And while the World Court has no real enforcement mechanisms, given that the US is certain to veto any UN Security Council resolution seeking to hold Israel to account, an ICC ruling would place an obligation on more than 120 states that have ratified its founding document, the Rome Statute, to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant should either step on their soil.
That would make Europe and much of the world – though not the US – off-limits to both.
And there is no reason for Israeli officials to assume that the ICC’s investigations will finish with Netanyahu and Gallant. Over time, it could issue warrants for many more Israeli officials.
As one Israeli official has noted, “the ICC is a mechanism with teeth”.
‘Antisemitic’ court
For that reason, Israel responded by going on the warpath, accusing the court of being “antisemitic” and threatening to harm its officials.
Washington appeared ready to add its muscle too.
Asked at a Senate committee hearing whether he would support a Republican proposal to impose sanctions on the ICC, Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, replied: “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response.”
Administration officials, speaking to the Financial Times, suggested the measures under consideration “would target prosecutor Karim Khan and others involved in the investigation”.
US reprisals, according to the paper, would most likely be modelled on the sanctions imposed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s predecessor, after the ICC threatened to investigate both Israel and the US over war crimes, in the occupied Palestinian territories and Afghanistan respectively.
Then, the Trump administration accused the ICC of “financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels” – allegations it never substantiated.
Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the time, was denied entry to the US, and Trump officials threatened to confiscate her and the ICC judges’ assets and put them on trial. The administration also vowed to use force to liberate any Americans or Israelis who were arrested.
Mike Pompeo, the then US secretary of state, averred that Washington was “determined to prevent having Americans and our friends and allies in Israel and elsewhere hauled in by this corrupt ICC”.
Covert war on ICC
In fact, a joint investigation by the Israeli website 972 and the British Guardian newspaper revealed this week that Israel – apparently with US support – has been running a covert war against the ICC for the best part of a decade.
Its offensive began after Palestine became a contracting party to the ICC in 2015, and intensified after Bensouda, Khan’s predecessor, started a preliminary investigation into Israeli war crimes – both Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza and its building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their lands.
Bensouda found herself and her family threatened, and her husband blackmailed. The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Yossi Cohen, became personally involved in the campaign of intimidation. An official briefed on Cohen’s behaviour likened it to “stalking”. The Mossad chief ambushed Bensouda on at least one occasion in an attempt to recruit her to Israel’s side.
Cohen, who is known to be close to Netanyahu, reportedly told her: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
Israel has also been running a sophisticated spying operation on the court, hacking its database to read emails and documents. It has tried to recruit ICC staff to spy on the court from within. There are suspicions at the ICC that Israel has been successful.
Because Israel oversees access to the occupied territories, it has been able to ban ICC officials from investigating its war crimes directly. That has meant, given its control of the telecommunications systems in the territories, that it has been able to monitor all conversations between the ICC and Palestinians reporting atrocities.
As a result, Israel has sought to close down Palestinian legal and human rights groups by designating them as “terrorist organisations”.
The surveillance of the ICC has continued during Khan’s tenure – and it is the reason Israel knew the arrest warrants were coming. According to sources that spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, the court came under “tremendous pressure from the United States” not to proceed with the warrants.
Khan has pointed out that interference in the court’s activities is a criminal offence. More publicly, a group of senior US Republican senators sent a threatening letter to Khan: “Target Israel and we will target you.”
Khan himself has noted that he has faced a campaign of intimidation and has warned that, if the interference continues, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
The question is how much of this is bravado, and how much is it affecting Khan and the ICC’s judges, making them wary of pursuing their investigation, expediting it or expanding it to more Israeli war crimes suspects.
Legal noose
Despite the intimidation, the legal noose is quickly tightening around Israel’s neck. It has become impossible for the world’s highest judicial authorities to ignore Israel’s eight-month slaughter in Gaza and near-complete destruction of its infrastructure, from schools and hospitals to aid compounds and bakeries.
Many tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, maimed and orphaned in the rampage, and hundreds of thousands more are being gradually starved to death by Israel’s aid blockade.
The role of the World Court and the War Crimes Court are precisely to halt atrocities and genocides before it is too late.
There is an obligation on the world’s most powerful states – especially the world’s superpower-in-chief, the United States, which so often claims the status of “global policeman” – to help enforce such rulings.
Should Israel continue to ignore the ICJ’s demand that it end its attack on Rafah, as seems certain, the UN Security Council would be expected to pass a resolution to enforce the decision.
That could range from, at a minimum, an arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel to imposing no-fly zones over Gaza or even sending in a UN peacekeeping force.
Washington has shown it can act when it wishes to. Even though the US is one of a minority of states not a party to the Rome Statute, it has vigorously supported the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2023…………………………………………………
Divisions in Europe
It is not just that the US is missing in action as Israel advances its genocidal goals in Gaza. Washington is actively aiding and abetting the genocide, by supplying Israel with bombs, by cutting funding to UN aid agencies that are the main lifeline for Gaza’s population, by sharing intelligence with Israel and by refusing to use its plentiful leverage over Israel to stop the slaughter.
And the widespread assumption is that the US will veto any Security Council resolution against Israel.
According to two former ICC officials who spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, senior Israeli officials have expressly stated that Israel and the US are working together to stymie the court’s work.
Washington’s contempt for the world’s highest judicial authorities is so flagrant that it is even starting to fray relations with Europe.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has thrown his weight behind the ICC and called for any ruling against Netanyahu and Gallant to be respected.
Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his outrage over Israel’s attacks on Rafah and called for them to stop immediately.
Three European states – Spain, Ireland and Norway – announced last week that they were joining more than 140 other countries, including eight from the 27-member European Union, in recognising Palestine as a state.
The coordination between Spain, Ireland and Norway was presumably designed to attenuate the inevitable backlash provoked by defying Washington’s wishes.
Among the falsehoods promoted by the US and Israel is the claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel’s military actions in Gaza because neither of them have recognised Palestine as a state.
But Palestine became a state party to the ICC way back in 2015. And, as Spain, Ireland and Norway have highlighted, it is now recognised even by western states usually submissive to the US-imposed “rules-based order”.
Another deception promoted by Israel and the US – a more revealing one – is the claim that the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel, like the US, has not ratified the Rome Statute. ……………………..
Might makes right
Both the ICJ and the ICC are fully aware of the dangers of taking on Israel – which is why, despite the dissembling complaints from the US and Israel, each court is treading so slowly and cautiously in dealing with Israeli atrocities.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Taking on Goliath
In making the case against Israel, Khan clearly knew he was taking on a Goliath, given Israel’s stalwart backing from the US. He had even recruited a panel of legal experts to give its blessing, in the hope that might offer some protection from reprisal.
The panel, which unanimously endorsed the indictments against Israel and Hamas, included legal experts like Amal Clooney, the nearest the human rights community has to a legal superstar. But it also included Theodor Meron, a former legal authority in the Israeli government’s foreign ministry.
In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, explaining his reasoning, Khan seemed keen to preempt the coming attacks. He noted that an unnamed senior US politician had already tried to deter him from indicting Israeli leaders. The prosecutor suggested that other threats were being made behind the scenes. ………………………………………………….
The ICC prosecutor made clear that he understands all too well what is at stake if the ICC and ICJ turn a blind eye to the Gaza genocide, as Israel and the US want. He told Amanpour: “If we don’t apply the law equally, we’re going to disintegrate as a species.”
The uncomfortable truth is that such disintegration, in a nuclear age, may be further advanced than any of us cares to acknowledge.
The US and its favourite client state give no sign of being willing to submit to international law. Like Samson, they would prefer to bring the house down than respect the long-established rules of war.
The initial victims are the people of Gaza. But in a world without laws, where might alone makes right, all of us will ultimately be the losers. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-genocide-continue-israel-us-must-destroy-laws-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 237: As Israel’s invasion of Rafah and northern Gaza continues, Smotrich calls for ‘war’ on West Bank
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for launching a “defensive war” on the West Bank in the same way that Israel has done in Gaza.
BY QASSAM MUADDI , https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-237-as-israels-invasion-of-rafah-and-northern-gaza-continues-smotrich-calls-for-war-on-west-bank/
Casualties
- 36,224 + killed* and at least 81,777 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
- 520+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 636 Israeli soldiers have been announced killed since October 7, and at least 3,568 have been announced as wounded.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on May 26, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on May 26, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Israeli media reports, exceeds 6,800 as of April 1.
Key Developments
CNN investigation shows that Israeli bombs used in the Rafah tent-city massacre last Sunday, May 26, were U.S.-made Boeing bombs.
Israel kills 240 Palestinians, wounds 1,134 since Monday, May 27, across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 36,240 and the number of wounded to 81,777, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israeli strikes target Palestinians trying to return to their homes in Jabalia.
UNRWA chief says Israel has made targeting international missions look legitimate.- Israeli forces raid Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas, northern Hebron, and Qalqilya in the West Bank, arresting 20 in the past 24 hours.
- Israeli forces cause large fire in main vegetable market in Ramallah.
- Two Israeli soldiers reported killed in car-ramming attack north of Nablus.
- Israel uses drone strikes during raid on Nablus last night.
- Israel’s finance minister Smotrich calls for “defensive war” in the West Bank.
- PLO says Israeli actions in northern West Bank refugee camps “same as in Gaza.”
Israeli forces partially withdraw from Jabalia.
Israel kills 240 across Gaza since Monday
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry announced that the remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip received 240 slain Palestinians in Israeli airstrikes since Monday, May 27, while 1134 others arrived wounded.
Meanwhile, local media sources reported that in the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes killed seven Palestinians in strikes on a shelter for displaced families in Gaza City. Reports also indicated that Israeli troops detonated several houses in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood in the city.
Israeli forces also targeted the areas of Beit Lahia, Zeitoun, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia with drone strikes and shelling. Israeli ground troops partially withdrew from Jabalia after a several-week-long invasion.
Residents found large destruction to infrastructure in Jabalia following the partial Israeli withdrawal. Other families who had fled the area at the beginning of the Israeli invasion in mid-May attempted to return to their homes in Jabalia, but Israeli troops opened fire at them, according to reports.
In the central Gaza Strip, heavy combat was reported between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters in the east of the central governorate. Meanwhile, Israeli forces opened machine gun fire on residents’ homes in the Bureij refugee camp. Israeli fire also targeted houses in the Wadi Gaza area and in the Mighraqa village, north of Deir al-Balah.
In the Nuseirat refugee camp, Israeli forces fired flares last night, while four Palestinians were killed in an air strike on a family house in the camp.
Smotrich calls for ‘war’ in West Bank as Israel ramps up raids
Since Wednesday night, Israeli forces raided the cities of Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah, Tubas, and the Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron, arresting at least 20 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Last week, an Israeli raid on Jenin killed 12 Palestinians, while largely destroying the camp’s infrastructure. The current raid pattern has been increasing in frequency and violence, especially in the northern West Bank refugee camps — notably in Tulkarem, Jenin, and Nablus.
On Wednesday, the Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who handles the administrative powers over the occupied West Bank, called upon the Israeli army to conduct a “defensive war” in the West Bank, similar to the one in Gaza. Smotrich has called in the past to wipe out Palestinian towns, arguing that it should be the Israeli army, not the settlers, to carry out such actions.
Also on Wednesday, the member of the PLO’s department for refugee camps responsible for the northern West Bank, Nancy Thouqan, told the Palestine News Network that what Israel is doing in the northern West Bank is already similar to what it is doing in Gaza.
Thouqan pointed out that the northern camps house the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, and have been the center of Palestinian activism in recent years. According to Thouqan, Israel aims at depopulating these camps, similarly to its attempts to depopulate the Gaza Strip, and to undermine the work of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
On Wednesday, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel’s smearing of the agency led some to believe that UN missions are legitimate targets. Lazzarini added that the size of Israeli attacks on UNRWA staff in the current war “deserve an investigation.” Since October, Israeli forces have killed 188 UNRWA employees, according to the agency’s own data as of May 7.
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
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