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Civilian deaths in Gaza highest of all world conflicts in 20th Century, including World Wars, Israeli study reveals

 https://www.sott.net/article/486726-Civilian-deaths-in-Gaza-highest-of-all-world-conflicts-in-20th-Century-including-World-Wars-Israeli-study-reveals 10 Dec 23

The Guardian newspaper saysThe aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found.

The analysis by Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter.

The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The Haaretz analysis found that in three earlier campaigns in Gaza, in the period from 2012-22, the ratio of civilian deaths to the total of those killed in airstrikes hovered around 40%. That ratio declined to 33% in a bombing campaign earlier this year, called Operation Shield and Arrow.

In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Haaretz described as “unprecedented killing”. The ratio is significantly higher than the civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead.

Comment: Andalou Agency, quoting the Palestinian Health Ministry – whose figures have repeatedly been shown by independent agencies to be accurate – report the following:

The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has mounted to 17,177 since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave said Thursday.

“Around 70% of the victims are children and women,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told a press conference.

He said 46,000 other people were injured in the Israeli onslaught on the blockaded Palestinian territory.

“At least 290 medics were killed, 102 ambulances destroyed and 160 health care centers targeted in the Israeli attacks, while 20 hospitals and 46 primary care centers were forced out of service,” al-Qudra said.


“The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,” Haaretz concluded. “The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.”

Comment: This reaction by even the Israeli press perhaps reveals why Israel, and those facilitating the genocide in the US, and UK, are escalating the slaughter and destruction, because it’s only a matter of time before unrest at home, and a response from those abroad, will hamper their nefarious agenda.

It also serves to distract from the rapidly deteriorating situation in their own economies and societies, whilst at the same time setting the Middle East alight which, they seem to think, will provide justification for their sinister actions.

The figures will make uneasy reading for the Biden administration, which is facing global criticism and isolation for vetoing a UN security council vote for a ceasefire on Friday.

Since the start of the war, triggered by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, the US has been seeking to persuade Israeli forces to be more discriminate in choosing targets, and has repeatedly claimed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are “receptive” to American advice, despite the consistently high civilian death toll.

Comment: The Guardian has been exposed as being compromised by the UK’s intelligence agencies, and that’s perhaps one reason why it fails to mention that strong evidence, along with logic, has since revealed that not only was the attack known about well in advance; the IDF was forced to stand down; that Israel was responsible for killing a significant number of its own people; as well as destroying evidence.

The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, repeated that claim while briefing reporters on Air Force One on Friday, but added: “We certainly all recognise more can be done to try to reduce civilian casualties, and we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end.”

Kirby was speaking as the Biden administration faced allegations of abetting war crimes for vetoing the security council resolution.

Human Rights Watch said the US risked “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic support. Paul O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: “With this veto, the US government is shamefully turning its back on immense civilian suffering, a staggering death toll, and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

Comment: In a vote for a ceasefire at the UN today, the US voted against, the UK abstained, the rest of the UN voted for:

The Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Washington on Friday night to maintain pressure for “urgent steps” to establish a ceasefire so humanitarian aid could be delivered.

In the face of the global criticism, US officials stressed the role the US has played in pushing for humanitarian deliveries to Gaza through the Rafah crossing point. Kirby said a US military transport plane had landed in Egypt on Friday carrying nearly 26,000kg (57,000lbs) of food, water, and medicine bound for Gaza.

Comment: Meanwhile the US & UK also provides the weapons, the funds, and the veto powers, without which there would be no need for them to send humanitarian aid.

“We’re certainly mindful of the suffering of the people of Gaza, and we’re doing everything we can to not just get stuff in there but to lead an actual international effort to get stuff in there,” he said.

Kirby said fewer than 100 trucks had crossed through the Rafah gate on Friday, about half the daily volume that entered Gaza during a week-long humanitarian ceasefire at the end of last month.

“Obviously that’s not at the level that we want it to be at,” he said, noting that Israel was preparing to open an additional inspection facility at Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border, which is expected to ease the most significant bottleneck, inspection capacity.

However, the UN and other aid agencies say that even when trucks enter the Gaza Strip at Rafah, the ground offensive in southern Gaza and the general lack of security is preventing the supplies from being distributed, at a time of a high and rising threat of starvation and disease.

Comment: The UN has also sounded the alarm that 130 of their own staff have been murdered; that their staff are taking their children with them to work in the hopes that, if they can’t be safe at home, they can at least ‘die together’.

They’re also warning that, with the conditions in Gaza being so dire – with 700 people sharing 1 toilet and 25 babies a day being born with little medical supplies – it won’t be long before disease and viral outbreaks ravage those that managed to escape the death from above:

The IDF said it had failed in a hostage rescue attempt on Friday. The chief spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said: “The forces raided a Hamas site and eliminated terrorists who had taken part in the abduction and captivity of hostages.”

He said two Israeli soldiers had been seriously wounded in the mission, and no hostages had been rescued. He did not confirm Hamas claims that one hostage, 25-year-old Sahar Baruch, had been killed in the rescue attempt, but his home kibbutz at Be’eri announced Baruch had died.


Comment: See also: Israel’s ground war conundrum

December 13, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader on Israeli Government’s War Crimes – Enabled & Defended by Biden & Congress

By Ralph Nader / Nader.org, more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/10/ralph-nader-on-israeli-governments-war-crimes-enabled-defended-by-biden-congress/

The humiliation of the U.S. government, which is actively complicit in providing the weaponry, funding, and UN vetoes backing the Israeli government’s attack on the civilian Palestinians/Arabs in tiny Gaza, is in plain view daily. All in the name of the unasked American people and taxpayers.

Earlier this week, at a House of Representatives’ hearing, Trump toady Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) repeatedly assailed three University presidents with the question of would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews, without any evidence that this hateful speech is prevalent on campus.

Pursuing her fulminations, Stefanik was cruelly oblivious to the real ongoing genocide in Gaza with her support of unconditional shipment of American F-16s, 155mm. missiles and other weapons of mass destruction used to kill children, women and the elderly who had nothing to do with the preventable October 7th Hamas violence.

Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman continues to say that the Israeli government does not intentionally target civilians. With U.S. drones over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual proof that the overwhelming bombing on civilian structures is killing innocent civilians.

The evidence is in the rubble of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, marketplaces, water mains, homes, apartment buildings, and piles of unburied corpses being eaten by stray dogs.  All this information is in the possession of bomber Biden’s regime.

The Bidenites and their bloodthirsty cohorts in Congress were forewarned when the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8th shouted these chilling genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Add an already illegal 16-year Israeli blockade of 2.3 Palestinians suffering from dire poverty, with 40% of their children down with anemia.

Now, about half of Gaza’s population are children, 85% of the entire population is homeless, wandering helplessly into nowhere, afflicted with pending starvation, sickened by spreading infectious diseases and dirty drinking water.  There is little or no medicines for diabetics and cancer patients. No surgery, no anesthesia, no emergency transport, no shelter from cold weather, only American-made bombs and missiles blowing up Palestinians into bits with Israeli snipers everywhere.

The Palestinians cannot flee from their open-air prison.  They cannot surrender – the Israeli government wants them gone. Bear in mind, the population that is not yet blown up is sick and dying, denied needed outside humanitarian aid. Defying feeble Biden’s wishes, Netanyahu only allows a trickle of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and those that do enter can scarcely reach their destinations.

All this raises the issue of the gross undercount of casualties. The Hamas Health Authority has restricted its count to the names of the deceased and injured supplied by hospitals and morgues. These locations are now largely rubble or inoperative. Bodies under the rubble, many of them children, can’t be counted. Thousands of missing people cannot be counted. The Ministry’s suspended count is over 17,000 fatalities, plus 45,000 injuries. With the far larger carnage unable to be tabulated, the actual fatality toll may reach 100,000 soon.

Nonetheless, about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported the death undercount of children in Gaza in two months was ten times greater than the deaths of Ukrainian children in nearly two years of Russian bombings. One of its headlines – “Smoldering Gaza Becomes a Graveyard for Children.”

There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza and about 5,500 of them are due to give birth. Where are they going to do that? How can they be cared for and be nurtured? These mothers are sick and starving. Add the babies to the terrorists toll.

Gaza’s area is about the size of Philadelphia. How many dead, injured, and dying people would there be if 20,000 bombs were dropped on civilians and civilian structures in Philadelphia? Philadelphians trapped without food, water, medicine or any escape route. Imagine 85% of 1.5 million residents homeless, wandering in the streets and alleys. And with virtually no humanitarian aid coming from outside the city. There wouldn’t be any fire trucks or water to extinguish spreading fires.

There are courageous Jewish groups (e.g., Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now) and rabbis calling for an end to the slaughter, demanding a ceasefire. There are protestors at all of Biden’s public events/trips reminding him of next November.

Veterans for Peace and other veteran groups are engaged in non-violent civil disobedience in front of the Scranton, Pennsylvania factory producing 155mm missiles for Israel. (Scranton is Biden’s hometown.) Public opinion is turning against the Biden/Israel war without limits on the Palestinians.

Biden wouldn’t want to poll the American people about his $14.3 billion genocide tax, charging American taxpayers to further prosperous Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza. They’ll likely tell Biden that poor children, unaffordable health facilities and other necessities in America need that money first.

There are some 30 Democratic Senators demanding that this Biden bill contain conditions and safeguards so that the money is not used to blow up more Palestinian children and women. But what else are these funds for other than to expand Israel’s military budget? The Israeli extremist ruling coalition under Netanyahu has made no secret of wanting to take over all of remaining Palestine as part of their “Greater Israel” mission to include what they call Judea and Samaria. As Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion, frankly declared referring to the Palestinians, “We have taken their country.” (As quoted in The Jewish Paradox(1978) by Nahum Goldmann.)

It is a cruel irony of history that Israeli state terrorism is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s regime has killed over 60 journalists—three of them Israelis—120 United Nations relief workers and instituted total blackouts to keep the grisly events in Gaza out of the news in real time. Netanyahu, to shield his colossal failure to defend Israel on October 7thand to keep his job, is making sure that his country joins the world community of savage, slaughtering regimes, exemplified by the Bush/Cheney unlawful criminal destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by Hillary Clinton toppling Libya into permanent violence and chaos since 2011. (Obama later called his conceding to Hillary’s demands as his worst foreign policy decision).

Capitol Hill and the White House don’t wait for any blood-guilt to be recognized. That will surely come later with the judgment of history and the nightmarish visions of innocents being vaporized because of Washington’s unconditional backing of the Israeli blitzkrieg against what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has repeatedly called the “totally defenseless people” of Gaza.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Blocks Gaza Peace Proposal at UN for 3rd Time, Holding World Hostage

The US government has paralyzed the United Nations, voting against the rest of the world and preventing peace in Gaza by vetoing three different resolutions in the Security Council. Meanwhile, Washington continues giving weapons to Israel.

By Ben Norton / Geopolitical Economy Report

The United States has used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council three times in less than two months to kill resolutions calling for peace in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Washington is sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel, directly assisting the country as it commits war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

On December 8, the Security Council voted on a resolution that called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and the unconditional release of all hostages.

The United States was the only country on the 15-member council that voted against the measure.

Close US ally the United Kingdom was the only country to abstain in the vote.

The United States helped to design the United Nations after World War II, concentrating power in the Security Council and giving permanent seats with veto power to the victors: the US, UK, France, USSR (now Russia), and China.

Many countries in the Global South have called to expand the Security Council and to eliminate the veto.

China and Russia have repeatedly expressed support for expanding the council. But Washington has adamantly opposed the initiative.

Global South leaders are particularly frustrated by the fact that the UK and France, each of which has a population of fewer than 70 million people, both have permanent seats on the Security Council, but not many of the most populous countries on Earth, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, or Brazil.

Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva stressed this November that the failure of the UN to bring peace to Palestine demonstrates that the system is “broken” and has a “lack of credibility”.

“The UN needs change”, Lula said, calling to expand the Security Council and remove the veto.

“The UN of 1945 does not work in 2023”, the Brazilian leader added.

US rebukes UN secretary-general’s historic invocation of article 99

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but was rejected by Washington.

Guterres took the extraordinary measure of invoking article 99 of the UN Charter, for the first time in five decades.

Article 99 states, “The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

The Associated Press noted, “Article 99 is extremely rarely used. The last time it was invoked was during fighting in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh and its separation from Pakistan”.

In the case of the Bangladeshi national liberation war of 1971, Pakistan’s right-wing military regime ethnically cleansed and committed genocide against Bengalis, with the support of the US government – specifically President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

The genocidal situation in Palestine is strikingly similar today.

This November, top UN experts warned that “grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians… point to a genocide in the making”.

The UN experts wrote:

[Israeli officials] illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal reported on December 1 that the “U.S. has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells”.

In less than two months, Washington sent Israel approximately 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.

In fact, Gaza is now one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times.

US vetoed two other Security Council resolutions on Gaza

The United States voted against two similar resolutions in October.

On October 16, the US and its allies the UK, France, and Japan voted against a measure introduced by Russia that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Two days later, the US unilaterally vetoed a resolution introduced by Brazil that urged “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza.

The UK abstained in that vote. Russia did too, but as a form of protest, arguing that the resolution was too weak, instead urging a ceasefire.

At the Security Council meeting on December 8, Russia’s UN representative, Dmitriy Polyanskiy, warned that the United States was “leaving scorched earth in its wake”.

China’s ambassador, Zhang Jun, stated, “The task required of the Council is very clear and definitive – act immediately, achieve a ceasefire, protect civilians and avoid a human catastrophe on a larger scale”.

139 of the 193 members of the United Nations recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, but it is not officially a UN member state – because the United States has prevented it from becoming one.

Palestine does however have observer status in the UN (along with the Vatican).

The representative of the observer state of Palestine, Riyad Mansour, participated in the December 8 Security Council session.

“Millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance, every single one of them is sacred and worth saving”, he cautioned.

By failing to approve a ceasefire, the Security Council is ensuring that Israeli “war criminals are given more time to perpetrate their crimes”, Mansour added.

The Palestinian representative asked, “How can this be justified? How can anyone justify the slaughter of an entire people?”

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chris Hedges Report: The Weapons Israel Tests on Palestinians Will Be Used Against All of Us

byEDITORDecember 11, 2023

As Antony Loewenstein explains, Palestine has been a testing ground for repressive technologies exported around the world, from spy software to killer drones.

By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network

Whether it’s drone technology or the infamous Pegasus spy software, Israel has long developed and refined repressive technologies used by governments around the world by testing them on Palestinians. Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a deep dive into the disturbing links between Israeli Apartheid, the arms industry, and global repression of civilian populations.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has Biden’s green light

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses.

The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

Ignoring US laws and its own token promises, the Biden administration protects Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza.

AARON MATÉ, DEC 12, 2023

As Israeli warplanes resumed bombing Gaza on December 1st, putting an end to a seven-day pause, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s motorcade “sped out of his hotel in Israel on its way to the Tel Aviv airport,” the Washington Post reported.

Before exiting Israel, Blinken claimed that he had pressed its government to prioritize “minimizing harm to innocent civilians.” But according to Axios, “Blinken didn’t ask Israel to stop the operation but… said the longer the high-intensity military campaign goes on, the more international pressure will build on both the U.S. and Israel to stop it.”

Additionally, Blinken asked Israel to “make sure that a military operation in southern Gaza doesn’t lead to an even higher amount of civilian casualties.” To Blinken, “minimizing harm” to the people of Gaza apparently means murdering slightly fewer of them.

After more than one week of relentless Israeli attacks on civilian targets, Blinken has been forced to acknowledge that even his token requests were ignored. When it comes to Israel’s assault, Blinken said Thursday, “there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there — the intent to protect civilians — and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”

There is not merely a gap between what Blinken and his colleagues say out loud and the reality on the ground, but an endless chasm.

One month ago, the Biden administration claimed that it was pressuring Israel to use smaller bombs against the densely populated Gaza Strip. “If the United States can get those smaller munitions to Israel, American officials hope Israel will use them to mitigate the risk to civilians,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 4th. That talking point is long forgotten. “In the first month and a half, Israel dropped more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs on Gaza that were supplied by Washington,” according to US intelligence figures obtained by the Washington Post. During this same period, the US has given Israel at least 15,000 bombs, including 2,000-pound bunker busters. So much for “smaller bombs.”

The Wall Street Journal characterizes the current US approach as “urging its top ally in the region to consider preventing large-scale civilian casualties while supplying many of the munitions deployed.” The US position is therefore akin to an accomplice continuing to re-arm a school shooter’s assault rifle while asking him to consider slaughtering fewer students. The Biden administration is so committed to fueling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. “The arms shipment has been put on an expedited track, and Congress has no power to stop it,” the New York Times reports.

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses. The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

As the first phase of Israel’s military campaign expanded to multiple hospitals in mid-November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted to CNN that his military “is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties,” and “fighting according to international law.”……………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.aaronmate.net/p/israels-genocide-in-gaza-has-bidens?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=139684163&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The View from Washington: Let the Killing in Gaza Continue

As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity.

December 10, 2023, https://theaimn.com/the-view-from-washington-let-the-killing-in-gaza-continue/ by: Dr Binoy Kampmark

Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence.

Such cover also takes the form of false fairness and forced balance. “We don’t have to choose between defending Israel and aiding Palestinian civilians,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote inanely in the Washington Post on October 31. “We can and must do both. That is the only way to stand firmly by one of our closest allies, protecting innocent lives, uphold the international rules of the road that ultimately benefit the American people, and preserve the sole viable path to lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians: two states for two peoples.” Given that innocent lives are being taken with mechanistic ruthlessness, international laws broken with impunity, and any remnant of a Palestinian state being liquidated, Blinken seemingly inhabits a parallel universe of mind-bending cynicism.

The latest attempt to halt hostilities came in the form of an intervention by UN Secretary-General António Guterres under the auspices of Article 99 of the UN Charter. The article grants the secretary-general the liberty to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

In his December 6 letter to the members of the Security Council, Guterres gives a brief account of the conflict, commencing on October 7. After noting the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 abductions (130 are still being held in captivity in Gaza), the focus shifts to the death of over 15,000 individuals in the strip itself, “more than 40 per cent of whom were children.” Somewhere in the order of 80 per cent of the population of 2.2 million residents in Gaza had been displaced, with 1.1 million seeking refuge in UNRWA facilities across the strip “creating overcrowded, undignified, and unhygienic conditions.” The provision of viable health care had all but ceased, with 14 hospitals of 36 facilities “partially functional.” Overall, Gaza was facing “a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system.”

The secretary-general concludes his note by urging the Security Council members “to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” and seek a “humanitarian ceasefire”. But on December 8, Washington predictably sabotaged the passage of the follow up resolution, which had been proposed by the United Arab Emirates. (Thirteen countries voted for the measure; with the United Kingdom abstaining.) The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring humanitarian access.

The US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert A. Wood, claimed that he and the delegation had “engaged in good faith on the text.” But “nearly all” of Washington’s recommendations had been ignored, resulting in “an unbalanced resolution divorced from reality on the ground.” Again, a sticking point was the omission in the draft of any reference to Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israel’s right to self-defence, and reference to any permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to access and provide medical treatment to the hostages still being held by Hamas.

With the gloves off, Wood made it clear that, in solidarity with Israel, the US will not countenance the continued existence of Hamas. “The resolution retains a call for an unconditional ceasefire – this is not only unrealistic but dangerous; it will simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on 7 October.”

While Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, was not present to address the Security Council, he subsequently affirmed the blood curdling, unending mission his country has embarked upon. “A ceasefire will only be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”

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As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity. This was certainly the view of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in a statement released by his office that “the American position is aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard also expressed the view that the US, in vetoing the resolution, had “displayed a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll, extensive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe happening in the occupied Gaza Strip.” Washington had “brazenly wielded and weaponized its veto to strongarm the UN Security Council, further undermining its credibility and ability to live up to its mandate to maintain international peace and security.” Not that it had much credibility to begin with.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Supporters Would Defend Literally Any Israeli Atrocity

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, DEC 10, 2023

Israel supporters are like, “No no you don’t understand, the side that’s killing babies and incinerating families and assassinating journalists and starving civilians and bombing cultural heritage sites and carpet bombing entire neighborhoods and driving an indigenous people off their land are the GOOD guys.”

❖

There is literally nothing Israel could do that its supporters wouldn’t defend. Try to fill in the blank in “Israel could _______ and people would defend it” with something that wouldn’t be true. Most of the insanely evil things you could put in that space are already actually being done. Genocide? They’re already doing that. Murdering babies? They’re already doing that. Killing thousands of children? Already doing that. Deliberately targeting and assassinating journalists, artists and scholars? Already doing that.

Israel supporters will defend any evil — literally any evil — as long as it is being perpetrated by their favorite regime. There are zero constraints of any kind, because Israel supporters are completely uninterested in morality. If they were, they wouldn’t be supporting one of the most immoral governments on this planet even after all it has done in the last two months.

Part of the problem is the widespread consensus that October 7 means Israel is justified in doing literally anything in response, no matter how heinous. Israel could exterminate the entire population of Gaza and its supporters would still be saying “WHAT ABOUT OCTOBER 7??”

A new Israelis study found that Israel is killing civilians in Gaza at a significantly higher rate than civilians were killed in the world wars of the 20th century. Military analysts have said that the destruction in northern Gaza is comparable to the most aggressive World War II bombing campaigns in places like Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne.

US officials were reportedly shocked when Israeli officials indicated they were preparing to inflict civilian casualties in Gaza that would be reminiscent of world war horrors, and then, in typical Israeli fashion, they went and did even worse…………………………………………………………..

The US is sponsoring a relentless genocidal massacre that’s killing, crippling and tormenting innocents in the most horrific ways imaginable, and Americans are being persuaded to focus instead on a completely fictional epidemic of genocidal rhetoric against Jews at universities. ………………………………………………………… more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-supporters-would-defend-literally?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=139664879&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Hypocrisy in The Hague: Why is it so easy for the International Criminal Court to charge Russians, but not Israelis?

 https://www.rt.com/news/588692-rome-statute-should-be-null/ Robert Inlakesh, 8 Dec 23

The reputation of the ICC could be completely destroyed if crimes against Palestine are not thoroughly investigated, says American attorney Stanley Cohen

In the first weeks of the Gaza-Israel war, the ICC’s prosecutor issued a statement in which he said that impeding aid to Gaza could be a crime, but was later revealed to have traveled to Israel and is being accused of stalling the courts investigation into war crimes. “If this is not a case that calls for an international tribunal, then the Rome Statute should be null and void,” says American attorney Stanley Cohen, speaking to RT.

On October 29, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued a warning to the Israeli government that impeding the transfer of aid into Gaza could give rise to “criminal responsibility” under the Rome Statute. However, during his speech delivered in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Karim Khan notably placed much greater focus on the Hamas-led attack of October 7 than on anything the Israeli military had committed in the Gaza Strip. Following the ICC prosecutor’s remarks, there have been questions raised as to whether the court will prove useful in addressing crimes committed across Palestine-Israel.

Renowned American attorney Stanley Cohen addressed Karim Khan’s remarks in Cairo. Cohen said that Khan “made rather affirmative declaratory arguments about what Hamas, what the Qassam brigades, did do, how, when, where, what happened. In the absence of any independent examination, in the absence of any independent evidence, based upon, to some degree, propaganda distortion, alternative intelligence information, which was put out there.” Cohen went on to state that “if I were one of the attorneys representing Palestinians in front of the ICC, given the commentary that the prosecutor made, I might ask him to recuse himself.”

In March of 2021, the ICC officially opened a probe into what it says are war crimes that may have been committed in Palestine – by all parties involved – since June 13, 2014. This would technically mean that crimes recently committed could be subject to an investigation and those responsible may, in theory, be prosecuted. Also, in 2021, Israel’s top human rights group, B’tselem, along with Human Rights Watch, declared that the Israeli government was operating a regime of Apartheid against the Palestinians. In 2022, Amnesty International followed suit, issuing its own lengthy report that demonstrated why it also had decided to accuse Israel of the crime of Apartheid. The ICC has the right, under the Rome Statute, to prosecute those who commit the crime of Apartheid. 

However, as the US-based think tank Arab Center Washington DC noted in September, “little has been done” over the past two years by the ICC, despite the prosecutors’ “professed desire to improve the credibility of the court and his private protestations that he cares about the question of Palestine.” Despite Israel having stated that it “will not cooperate” with the ICC, protesting its announced probe into war crimes in 2021, the families of Israelis killed on October 7 have urged the court to launch an investigation into alleged crimes committed by Hamas. This puts the Israeli government in a tough position, as it has repeatedly stated that the ICC has no jurisdiction in their territory. Hamas, on the other hand, welcomed the ICC probe into war crimes, while defending its own actions.

Commenting on the question of why the ICC has yet to move towards indicting those responsible for crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories, Stanley Cohen replied:

“They returned an indictment against Putin on the basis of ex parte claims, certainly probable cause, within four days. In the case of Israel you’ve had nine years to find, investigate and corroborate systemic violations of international law, the violation of the law of war, human rights violations, collective punishment, violations of the humanitarian code, crimes against humanity. War crimes.”

Cohen also added the following: “I don’t know why it’s taken two years… There should be an ongoing investigation right now. I was involved in the preliminary applications for the ICC. There have been, just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of declarations, of affidavits, of videos, of films, of admissions, of statements over the last nine years now, that the ICC has. The cynic in me imagines or wonders whether this, the same piece would’ve taken the speed if the targets were African, if they were black, because the ICC has a history of moving with deliberate speed when it involves African defendants or targets, or people of color.”

Since the child death toll in Gaza alone, as a result of Israel’s war on the besieged coastal enclave, is more than six times times higher than the total Israeli civilian death toll from October 7, it begs the question as to whether the ICC is viewing crimes committed against Palestinians with the same seriousness. If that case goes forward, and investigates the never ending list of war crimes committed across Palestine-Israel, it could perhaps rescue some of the legitimacy of the court, which has been repeatedly accused by African leaders of wrongful targeting. In fact, due to the majority of the ICC’s indictments having been handed out to those on the continent of Africa, some have even suggested that the ICC should be renamed the African Criminal Court.  

To make matters worse, once it was revealed that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had traveled to Israel, he quickly made plans to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian human rights groups. However, human rights groups based in the occupied territories rejected his request to meet. Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) said that “the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner.”

According to Stanley Cohen, “there are lots of options” beyond the International Criminal Court when it comes to the prosecution of war crimes, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “You also then have the situation of courts with universal jurisdiction such as South Africa and Spain and about a dozen or so other countries, which I have no doubt will also be initiating investigations under universal jurisdiction,” he said.

Whether the ICC acts now will either be its saving grace, or irreparably stain the reputation of the court forever. The sheer scale of the atrocities that are now being committed in Gaza is difficult to even describe, with more tonnage of explosives being dropped on the besieged territory than the nuclear bomb used by the United States against Hiroshima. Meanwhile, food, water, medical aid, fuel and electricity are being prevented from entering, or in other cases are being severely limited. Some 1.5 million civilians have been displaced and around 20,000 people killed, while upwards of 30,000 have been injured. 

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

White House Says No Deadline for Israel to End Gaza Onslaught

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 17,000 Palestinians have been killed.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/09/white-house-says-no-deadline-for-israel-to-end-gaza-onslaught/

US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said Thursday that the Biden administration has not set a deadline on Israel’s war in Gaza and reiterated US opposition to a ceasefire.

“We have not given a firm deadline to Israel, not really our role. This is their conflict. That said, we do have influence, even if we don’t have ultimate control over what happens on the ground in Gaza,” Finer told the Aspen Security Forum.

Financial Times reported last week that the Israeli onslaught is expected to last over a year. US officials told CNN that they expect the current phase of the war, which involves constant airstrikes and a ground operation, would continue into 2024, and then Israel would narrow down its targeting to specific Hamas members, possibly by January.

Finer said the US supports Israel’s goal of ensuring that “Hamas can no longer govern,” although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated his objective is the elimination of Hamas altogether. Finer said the US is “not in place yet of asking Israel to stop or for a ceasefire.”

There’s no indication that Israel is successfully taking out Hamas fighters, as its bombardment has incurred a massive civilian death toll. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that 17,177 Palestinians have been killed since Israel unleashed its campaign on October 7, and about 70% of the dead are women and children.

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Israel-Hamas War’ Label Obscures Israel’s War on Palestinians

FAIR, GREGORY SHUPAK 8 Dec 23

Since October 7, the day the escalation in Israel/Palestine began (FAIR.org, 10/13/23), American media outlets have persistently described the fighting as an “Israel-Hamas war.” From October 7 through midday on December 1, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have combined to run 565 pieces that use the phrase “Israel-Hamas war.”

This paradigm has been a dominant way of covering the violence, even though Israel has been clear from the start that its assault has not been narrowly aimed at Hamas. At the outset of the Israeli onslaught, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Times of Israel, 10/9/23) said: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Oxfam later said that such restrictions on Palestinians’ ability to eat—which left 2.2 million people “in urgent need of food”—mean that Israel is deploying a policy wherein “starvation is being used as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians.”

A day later, Israeli military spokesperson Adm. Daniel Hagari (Guardian, 10/10/23) said that “hundreds of tons of bombs” had already been dropped on the Gaza Strip, and admitted that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”

The indiscriminate nature of Israel’s assault is clear. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on November 24 that “over 1.7 million people in Gaza, or nearly 80% of the population, are estimated to be internally displaced.” On November 25, the Swiss-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that Israel had killed 20,031 Palestinians in Gaza, 18,460 of whom (or 92%) were civilians, since October 7.

Thus, while Israel has openly acknowledged that it is carrying out indiscriminate violence against Palestinians, US media outlets do Israel the favor of presenting its campaign as if it were only aimed at combatants. “Israel-Gaza war” comes closer to capturing the reality that Israel’s offensive is effectively against everyone living in Gaza. Yet “Israel-Gaza war” appears in 265 pieces in the three papers, exactly 300 fewer than the obfuscatory “Israel-Hamas war.”

Consider also the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor finding that Israel has slaughtered 8,176 children. If 41% of all the Palestinians Israel has killed in the first seven weeks of its rampage have been children, and 8% have been combatants, then it is less an “Israel-Hamas war” than an Israeli war on Palestinian children.

Characterizing what has happened since October 7 as an “Israel-Hamas war” fails to adequately capture the scope and the character of Israel’s violence. Describing the bloodbath in Palestine this way obscures that grave violence is being visited upon virtually all Palestinians, whatever their political allegiances and whatever their relation to the fighting.

Cognitive dissonance

Corporate media have often stuck to the “Israel-Hamas war” approach even when the information the outlets are reporting shows how inadequate it is to conceive of Israel’s attacks in that way. For instance, the New York Times (10/20/23) ran a story about Israel ordering 1.2 million Gaza residents to evacuate their homes, and still classified the evacuation as part of the “Israel-Hamas war.” The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, is estimated to have 30,000–40,000 fighters (Axios, 10/21/23).

The Wall Street Journal published a short piece (11/6/23) that noted:

The United Nations said that the Israel-Hamas war has killed the highest number of UN workers in any single conflict. The UN said that over 88 workers in its Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA], the largest humanitarian organization in the Gaza Strip, have been killed since October 7.

But UNRWA did not itself use the “Israel-Hamas war” narrative in the report to which the Journal referred, instead opting for “escalation in the Gaza Strip.” Indeed, Israel killing UN workers at a rate of almost three each day would seem to fall outside the bounds of an “Israel-Hamas war,” but that’s how the paper categorizes the violence. (“Israel’s war on the UN” falls well outside the bounds of the ideologically permissible in the corporate media.)……………………………… more https://fair.org/home/israel-hamas-war-label-obscures-israels-war-on-palestinians/

December 9, 2023 Posted by | Israel, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Abject failure to forge ceasefire means international community complicit in unfolding catastrophe in Gaza

December 7, 2023, by: The AIM Network, https://theaimn.com/abject-failure-to-forge-ceasefire-means-international-community-complicit-in-unfolding-catastrophe-in-gaza/

Oxfam says that many within the international community – particularly Israel’s state supporters – are complicit in the mass death, forcible displacement, starvation and deprivation being inflicted upon more than 2 million people being penned and moved around Israeli designated target zones in Gaza, both in the besieged north and now throughout the entrapped south.

Oxfam staff in Gaza speak of young children asking their parents to pack their clothes into separate bags for their next displacement under fire, in case their parents are killed. People are now fighting over basic necessities like food, water and fuel. An Oxfam partner told us today:

“This is one of the most difficult days and wars that we have experienced. If you look anywhere around, you will find displaced people, injured people, people sleeping in the streets, and even we face many difficulties in distributing aid because there is no safe place in Gaza. Every area can be dangerous, each and every place can be bombed at any moment.”

Virtually no aid is now going into Gaza. Whatever Israel might allow to trickle in is insufficient and cannot be safely distributed to civilians being forced to run for their lives. “This kind of systemic, militarised chaos has overwhelmed the international humanitarian system. Our governments don’t even have the smokescreen of humanitarianism to hide behind now as Israel carries out its campaign of collective punishment,” said Garcia.

“Israel’s so called safe zones within Gaza are a mirage: unprotected, not agreed or trusted, not provisioned, and not accessible. We hold genuine fears that masses of terrified people will be forced beyond Gaza itself under the guise of ‘safety’,” she said. “This would force the humanitarian system into an impossible choice between helping civilians and being complicit in their forced deportation.”

“The terrible irony is that this militarised destruction of Gaza is literally blowing away any chance of real security for both Palestinians and Israelis alike. Gaza needs a ceasefire now and humanitarian agencies need the guarantee of safe access in order to help its people and save lives.”

December 8, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Suffering and killing in Gaza must stop now

December 6, 2023,  The AIM Network,  https://theaimn.com/suffering-and-killing-in-gaza-must-stop-now/

Plan International Australia Media Release

STATEMENT: The horror and trauma children are facing in Gaza right now is indescribable and unconscionable – suffering and killing must stop now.

After a pause in fighting for just one week, Plan International is devastated by the resumption of violence in Gaza over the weekend and the shocking number of civilians and children being killed in a matter of days.

Following the week-long pause and the release of 110 hostages from Gaza and 240 Palestinian prisoners, hopes held out by humanitarian agencies of a permanent and lasting ceasefire were crushed when Israel’s bombardments across the Gaza Strip resumed on Friday 1 December.

More than 500 civilians – including children – have been killed since bombing resumed, according to the Palestinian health ministry, as of Monday 4 December. Of those killed, 70% been women and children. The UN says more than 1.9 million people in Gaza are now displaced from their homes.

This sudden escalation of violence reverses the limited gains made in terms of humanitarian assistance during the pause. The devastating number of deaths, total destruction of health facilities and lack of basic sanitation and clean water, and other lifesaving and life-sustaining infrastructure and materials bring a grave risk of more children dying of disease and starvation. Sustained bombing is causing emotional distress and trauma amongst children that no words can truly explain.

With Israel expanding its ground military operations in the south of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, millions of people who had previously fled from the north have been left with nowhere to go. The health system in Gaza has now collapsed and UNICEF staff have described the few hospitals that remain in operation as “warzones”.

There is never any justification for the killing or maiming of children. In war and conflict, children are always innocent and must not be targeted. The horror and trauma children are facing in Gaza right now is indescribable and unconscionable.

While limited humanitarian assistance is being provided, the intensifying violence makes the situation in Gaza immensely dangerous for humanitarians and civilians alike.

Plan International is closely monitoring the situation in Gaza and is preparing to scale up operations through our offices in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and through local partners. Plan International Egypt are supporting the Egyptian Red Crescent to deliver supplies including food and first aid kits via the Rafah crossing, while Plan International Jordan have signed an MoU with Terre Des Hommes to support their work in Gaza. In the south of Lebanon, where cross-border tensions have led to widespread internal displacement, Plan International Lebanon are providing a range of support to displaced children and their families including non-food items, food, and household hygiene kits.

With the two-month mark of this terrible escalation of violence approaching, Plan International continues to call on all parties involved for an unconditional, immediate, sustained and complete ceasefire and improved humanitarian access. We also call for the release of all civilian hostages and Palestinian children held as prisoners.

About Plan International

About Plan International

Plan International is the charity for girls’ equality. Working across 83 countries, we tackle the root causes of poverty, support communities through crises, campaign for gender equality, and help governments do what’s right for children and particularly for girls. We believe a better world is possible. An equal world; a world where all children can live happy and healthy lives, and where girls can take their rightful place as equals. www.plan.org.au

December 8, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US officials think Gaza ground operation could end by January as Biden admin privately warns Israel about its tactics, (but USA still sending weapons)

By Natasha Bertrand, MJ Lee, Alex Marquardt and Oren Liebermann, CNN 6 Dec 23

US officials expect the current phase of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza targeting the southern end of the strip to last several weeks before Israel transitions, possibly by January, to a lower-intensity, hyper-localized strategy that narrowly targets specific Hamas militants and leaders, multiple senior administration officials tell CNN.

But as the war enters this new ground phase in the south, the White House is deeply concerned about how Israel’s operations will unfold over the next several weeks, a senior US administration official said. The US has warned Israel firmly in “hard” and “direct” conversations, they said, that the Israeli Defense Forces cannot replicate the kind of devastating tactics it used in the north and must do more to limit civilian casualties.

The US has conveyed to Israel that as global opinion has increasingly turned against its ground campaign, which has killed thousands of civilians, the amount of time Israel has to continue the operation in its current form and still maintain meaningful international support is quickly waning………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/politics/israel-ground-operation-us-warnings/index.html

December 8, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

British government to send surveillance planes to facilitate Israel’s genocide

Robert Stevens, WSWS, 5 December 2023

On Saturday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the Royal Air Force (RAF) would carry out surveillance flights over Gaza.

A joint statement by the Ministry of Defence, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and Home Office, headed “UK military activity in the Eastern Mediterranean”, announced, “In support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity, the Ministry of Defence will conduct surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza.”………………

Britain has been up to its neck in the arming of the Israeli regime that has killed tens of thousands, mainly civilians and the vast majority women and children, and reduced Gaza to rubble. Now everyone is expected to believe that the RAF will be carrying out blanket surveillance of Gaza and a large part of the eastern Mediterranean with no military purpose and will not make information gathered available to its main military ally in the region.

British imperialism is gearing up for an escalation of the war in the Middle East and putting the necessary resources in place. Just two days before the drone surveillance announcement, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps revealed that the UK is sending one of its most lethal warships to the Gulf, HMS Diamond, a Type 45 destroyer with the ability to shoot down missiles…………………………………………..

Britain’s role in supplying Israel’s war-machine is critical. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), “UK industry provides 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth combat aircraft that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza. The contract for the components is estimated… to be worth £336m since 2016.”

Israel has 50 F-35s on order from the US, with 22 already delivered by the end of 2022, reports CAAT. The organisation estimates that “each aircraft involves around $12 million to UK industry. This would imply a value of $72 million (£58m) for total UK deliveries of F-35s to Israel in 2022…”

Much of what the UK sends to Israel’s military is not even documented, with CAAT noting, “Between 2018 and 2022, the UK exported £146m in arms sales via Single Issue Export Licences. However, a large proportion of military equipment exported is via Open General Export Licences. These open licences, which include the F-35 components, lack transparency and allow for unlimited quantities and value of exports of the specified equipment without further monitoring.”………………………………………………….

The Sunak government refuses to confirm whether it has troops on the ground already in Gaza. On Monday, MPs were allotted just one hour to ask the government questions of the “Humanitarian Situation” in the Strip; a debate which hardly any of the mainly pro-war MPs across all parties showed up for.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn—who remains a party member but sits as an Independent having been expelled from the parliamentary party three years ago by leader Sir Kier Starmer—said in his comments that “Israel is clearly undertaking an act of cleansing of the entire population of Gaza”, which “is illegal in international law.” He then asked, “What is the role, purpose and military objective of British military participation in the whole area? Can he [Leo Docherty, a parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office] assure us that there are no British soldiers on the ground in Gaza?”………

Britain’s military role in the region is maintained to ensure its ruling elite profit from the spoils of genocide and war, as the trusted partners of US imperialism. Bloomberg and Newsweek reported in October that the Biden administration is considering sending in “peacekeepers for the Gaza Strip”, once Hamas is wiped out and Gaza depopulated, and that the “Multinational force could include American, UK, French troops.”

Despite a November 1 statement by White House spokesperson John Kirby that there are “no plans or intention to put US military troops on the ground in Gaza, now or in the future”, Bloomberg reported that the Biden administration “is still talking to partners about what a post-conflict Gaza should look like. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “if that means some sort of international presence, then that’s something we’re talking about.”

Bloomberg reported that “one option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France.”

On Monday, John Bolton, the former Republican US national security adviser, proposed at the UK’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the Gaza Strip should be split into two territories, with Gaza north of the Wadi Gaza River administered by Israel and an area to the south run by Egypt.

This would be initiated after the ethnic cleansing of most Palestinians and facilitate the transfer of those that remain. No Palestinians would be allowed to settle in Israel, which Bolton said would not even provide work visas, but must all be resettled in other countries.  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/05/ttog-d05.html

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Israel, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

One Family’s Harrowing Journey Out of Gaza City

December 6, 2023,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/06/one-familys-harrowing-journey-out-of-gaza-city/

Zakaria Baker and his family were forced from their home in Al-Shati refugee camp by Israeli bombs on November 7. As they traveled south over 15 kilometers they witnessed incredible horrors and not everyone survived the journey. This is their story.

By Zakaria Baker / Mondoweiss

[Mondoweiss] Editor’s Note: The following testimony was given by Zakaria Baker on November 11, 2023. The testimony was collected by Amplify Gaza Stories, an organization working on the ground in Gaza to collect and translate testimonies from Gazans, ensuring their stories of struggle, resilience, and survival are heard.

November 11, 2023

am Zakaria Baker, one of the people who were displaced from their homes four days ago in November 2023 – around November 7, 2023.

The beginning of the displacement is as follows: An Israeli intelligence officer called one of my cousins. There were about 20 of us sitting on chairs. The bombing of Al-Shati Refugee Camp did not stop for a single second. The missiles that were fired at the camp – we couldn’t see or hear them. They were barrel bombs. When they were dropped on a residential block of six or seven houses, they destroyed them completely. The scariest and most painful thing is that these missiles are fired at houses crowded with people. The bodies in Al-Shifa Camp are still under the rubble. We could smell the bodies.

The Israeli intelligence officer called one of my cousins who was sitting with us and said, “Bakers, why haven’t you left? Your neighbors have evacuated. You have 30 minutes to leave for your safety. If you don’t go, we will drop death on you.”

Ok, half an hour… What do we do? We are families and children and have to get ready to leave?

Less than half an hour later, about 20 minutes, maybe less, the bombing started a few meters away from us. It was targeting houses that were just two or three houses away. We couldn’t take anything with us, just some medication because I had had open heart surgery. So we walked – women, children, and elderly – as we kept walking, the bombing got closer to our houses. Whenever we passed a house, it was destroyed behind us.

The bombardment continued to Rono Mosque near Al-Shifa Hospital. When we were under the mosque, a bomb hit its minaret. Thousands of people were in the street. Some of them came from the hospital too. Many elderly people were with us. There were 160 people from our family in the street, and from our extended family, there were around 4 or 5 thousand.

We all started walking. When we reached the Al-Shifa there were thousands of people there. Most of them were residents from around Al-Shifa Hospital, or people who were seeking shelter inside the hospital who fled because the hospital was targeted.

We reached Dola interchange, some five to six kilometers we had already covered. We saw a scruffy-looking bus, but it was working, and we asked the driver to take us to the Dola interchange. He asked for 80 shekels, and we were approximately 40 people. We agreed on 80 shekels to take us to the Dola roundabout near Salah al-Din. We reached the Dola interchange, and we got off the bus, and we walked approximately one kilometer after the Kuwait roundabout, and we saw huge crowds, you know, don’t say hundreds or 1000s or 10s of thousands, there were hundreds of thousands of people and horrific scenes – women 80 and 90-year-olds, old men of 70 and 80 years old, some of them were wounded, some carrying children. We kept walking until we met a donkey and cart, and the owner said 20 shekels, so we loaded everything onto this cart – women, children, all our luggage, everything that we could get on the cart. Halfway up, the donkey was struggling, so the driver asked us to push. So we pushed it for the sake of helping the elderly and the children. 

. We pushed until we were within 100 meters of the Israeli IDF. We got down, and we were asked to show our IDs. I picked up my grandson and played with him in order to assure him and for him to be assured by me. We walked within 10 meters of the soldiers. They said, “Stop.” We stopped. We saw three tanks move in front of us. Once they passed, we were told to walk on.

We only had one suitcase each. There were bodies everywhere. Some decomposed, some were charred. We saw a car with a person inside it dead. His bottom half was intact, his upper half was decomposed. Horrific scenes, enough to make a stone cry. Enough to make a stone cry. We left the area with the tanks, and we moved to Wadi Gaza Bridge, and they said to us now you are in a safe zone. From the area with the tanks to Wadi Gaza, my grandson was crying, he was hungry. 

There was a small wall, and we let his mother use it to hide behind it so that she could breastfeed him and stop him crying just for a few minutes, about five minutes. In general, we felt easier and a little bit calmer after my grandson was fed. We continued walking in an enormous stream of humans in a column

On the bridge, we were not allowed to stop. It was forbidden to stop, in fact, one of the old women with us, who was married to my relative, she was 86 years old, her name was Kefah Bakr. She fell down from fatigue and died, she couldn’t survive the journey, the walking. She was kinda lucky because she died 10 meters after passing through the Israeli IDF-controlled area, and so she was taken to hospital.

Back in the tank area, you’re not allowed to look left or right. You must keep looking straight.

(Question from Mohammed Ghalayini, a volunteer with Amplify Gaza Stories: Were the instructions from the soldiers given by loudspeakers?)

Answer: No, the instructions were passed from one person to another. The people in the front were instructed to do something, and they would tell it to someone behind them and so on, and the instructions would be spread to all the others.

Many of the old people fell down and were left. People would walk past them. One person dropped his suitcase. His name Alaa Abu-Stata. He bent down to pick up his suitcase, and he was shot dead. Many of the old women couldn’t withstand this hard work, and they fell down to the ground. No one dared to stop to help them, they would shoot dead all those who would help her. So we had to sacrifice one old person to save 10 or 20 others from being shot or humiliated. I saw four cases, one person was called by name by loudspeakers. They stripped him down naked, and he was arrested, and no one knows where he has been taken. No one knows anything about him. This is what I have seen at a distance of 100 meters, and others have seen similar cases of arrests.

We kept on walking until Burej. Imagine! From Al-shati’ to the bridge – something like 15 kilometers. At Burej, there were no cars, only lorries. One lorry driver came along, and I told him we wanted to go to Khan Younis or the Hamad area. He said 300 shekels. I said, never mind just get us out of here. We reached Hamad, and we had another torturous journey at Hamad.

(Question: Did you find accommodation in Hamad?)

No, we couldn’t find any rooms. We spent three nights sleeping rough on the floor, unprotected, under the skies—cold nights. On the third night, only on the third night, we switched on spotlights to repel insects and flies from the eight and nine-month-old babies. On the 4th day, we managed to sort out the situation. We broke a partition that belongs to the council – some 4 meters square, and we put 40 people in it. This was my project. I made a makeshift tent from it with used plastic sheets, and six families were able to shelter there.

Since 12:00 yesterday, we haven’t been able to find a piece of bread. We have one meal a day – for two reasons: to avoid going to the toilet and because we can’t find any food. It’s a hunger war. No tinned food. We went to all the supermarkets and could not find anything. Women slept in the same clothes they left home with. This water I was given by Abu Mohammed. We were subjected to pain, suffering, anger, humiliation. I can’t talk anymore about this.

Since this story was recorded, Baker, his family, and thousands of others seeking refuge were again forced to leave their shelter in Hamad City, Khan Younis, on December 2 after receiving an evacuation order from the Israeli military.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Israel, PERSONAL STORIES, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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