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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

Every single day

Rescuers search for survivors after Rafah home destroyed


Palestinians search for missing people under the rubble of a house following an Israeli air strike in Rafah on Wednesday



The Wafa news agency reported that at least eight people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Rafah homes overnight


Gaza war death toll surpasses 33,000; 62 killed in past day

At least 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, its Health Ministry says. Some 62 Palestinians were killed and 91 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.


Overnight Israeli strikes pound southern Rafah, central Gaza

There has been no let-up in air strikes in the Gaza Strip. Last night, there was a surge of attacks in Rafah where two homes full of displaced people were targeted, killing at least seven Palestinians and injuring three others. This is what Gaza’s supposed “safe zone” witnesses every night. Israel’s surveillance drones and fighter jets rarely leave the skies.

There was also more bombardment by Israeli forces stationed around the outskirts of central Gaza, particularly the eastern parts of Nuseirat, Bureij, and Maghazi camps. Recently, the Israeli military has deployed more troops there in a sign there could be an impending incursion.


The aftermath of Israeli strikes on Deir el-Balah


People try to salvage usable items from the rubble of destroyed buildings



Around the Network
Cobretti2 on 04 April 2024

All these leaders have suddenly outspoken because a few aid workers from their countries got killed.

Are they virtual signalling or will they do anything about it?

I agree with Israel, it's part of war so their lives mean just as much as anyone else who is innocent died.

So then the question becomes, should there be a 'war', when in reality it is a massacre of a group of people. If the west is still hell bent to continue to call it a war, then all innocent lives should have the same value and pressure from the West when those incidents occur.

On a side note,, glad to see Israel found use for AI, training it to kill humans is not going to end badly in the long run for humanity hmm.



 

 

SvennoJ on 04 April 2024



And Israel is exporting the killer AI...

It's not us committing war crimes, it's the AI!


Israel’s Lavender AI concerning from a legal, moral, humanitarian perspective

Sai Bourothu, a researcher on the Automated Decision Research team at the Stop Killer Robots coalition, has spoken to Al Jazeera about Israel’s use of the Lavender system, an AI-powered database, to identify targets for bombing in Gaza.

She said the increasing use of such processing systems in conflict is “deeply concerning from a legal, moral and humanitarian perspective”.

“While the Habsora [or Gospel] system used AI to identify targets such as buildings and structures, the Lavender system generates human targets,” she said.

The use of such a system by Israel in the Gaza Strip, she said, raises “grave concerns over the increasing use of autonomy in conflict, digital dehumanisation, artificial intelligence, automation bias and human control in the use of force”.

She noted that these systems’ rapid generation of targets and the Israeli military’s sweeping approval of recommended targets “brings into question compliance with international humanitarian law, particularly the principles of distinction and proportionality, and raises serious ethical concerns around responsibility and accountability for the use of force”.

“The reduction of people to data points through the use of these systems has contributed to accelerating digital dehumanisation in war,” she said.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 04 April 2024

SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

Rip sea route

Spanish NGO working with WCK stops using sea route to Gaza

NGO Open Arms said it and US charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) are suspending attempts to get aid to Gaza via sea after seven WCK workers were killed in an Israeli air raid on Monday.

The two charities had worked together in launching a maritime corridor of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Cyprus in March and had just completed unloading about a third of the shipped cargo when the convoy of WCK workers was attacked on April 1.

“This attack, perpetrated by the [Israeli military] last Monday, marks a painful turning point in our efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Open Arms said in a written statement.

“With the arrival yesterday of the Open Arms ship in Larnaca, Cyprus, the mission in alliance with WCK in the humanitarian corridor to the Gaza Strip is suspended,” Open Arms said.

It quoted Open Arms director Oscar Camps calling Gaza a “dystopian laboratory where people’s blood flows while war technologies are tested and perfected, directed by increasingly automated algorithms that allow all human responsibility to be diluted, using technology and trivializing evil.”

“Now states are rushing to extend their condolences to the families, but they are not showing the same rush to stop the shipment of weapons to this laboratory of destruction,” Camps said.

“How much more humanity must be lost in this genocide?”

US approved more weapons to Israel on the same day of WCK attack: Report

The United States approved the transfer of more than 1,000 MK82 500-pound bombs, more than 1,000 small-diameter bombs, and fuses for MK80 bombs on April 1 – the same day Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed seven aid workers from the charity group World Central Kitchen, three US officials told The Washington Post.

Congress granted authorisation for their transfer several years before the start of the war on October 7, the sources told the Post. But the US government has the power to suspend arms packages any time before delivery and it has not done so in this case, added the report.

US President Joe Biden is said to be “outraged and heartbroken” by the killing of the humanitarian workers, though he has drawn criticism for failing to turn his rage into concrete action to change Israel’s war conduct in Gaza.

 

MSF dismisses Israeli claim aid worker killings were a ‘regrettable incident’

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it rejects Israel’s position that an air raid that killed seven aid workers on Monday was a “regrettable incident”, saying many humanitarian personnel have been attacked previously.

“We do not accept it because what has happened to World Central Kitchen and MSF’s convoys and shelters is part of the same pattern of deliberate attacks on humanitarians, health workers, journalists, UN personnel, schools and homes”, Christopher Lockyear, secretary-general of MSF International, said at a news conference in Geneva.

He added, “We have been saying it for weeks now: this pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence.”

He said the killings of the World Central Kitchen workers showed that measures to ease the conflict were futile “in a war fought with no rules”.

“Our movements and locations are shared, coordinated and identified already. This is about impunity, a total disregard for the laws of war. And now it must become about accountability.”

“I have received no explanation for any of the incidents,” Lockyear said.

 

Israeli strike targets rescue team, killing four

At least four people, including a paramedic, have been killed in an Israeli air strike that hit a rescue team in Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza, a health official says.

The emergency director at Kamal Adwan Hospital, Fares Afaneh, said the attack targeted a medical team rescuing injured people. He identified one of the victims as Hussein Matar.

“Our crew moved to rescue [people] wounded by Israeli shelling, and upon its arrival, it was subjected to another bombardment. Our crew was bombed while working,” Afaneh said.

Videos obtained by Al Jazeera show injured people arriving at the hospital.

“These are Biden and America missiles that target medical staff, children, women and those safe in their homes,” Afaneh added.

 

The Elders group urges nations to stop arms sales to Israel

All states providing arms to Israel must suspend arms transfers, The Elders said in a statement, in response to “systematic violations” of international humanitarian law in Gaza and across the occupied West Bank.

Members of The Elders, a group founded by South Africa’s Nelson Mandela in 2007, have included global leaders such as Ban Ki-moon, Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu, working for peace and human rights.

“Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian assistance into Gaza is unlawful and is causing unprecedented levels of catastrophic hunger, with famine in northern Gaza now imminent,” the group said.

It added that the US, as Israel’s closest ally and its biggest arms provider, should be leading the way.

“We are deeply concerned that the [US] Biden administration continues to approve arms transfers, appearing to accept Israel’s assurances on compliance with its legal obligations as credible, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,” read the statement from The Elders.

 



SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

‘Irate’ Biden calls Netanyahu, but no real consequences for Israel yet

We understand that call is taking place right now, and Biden is irate. He’s furious, and he’s dressing down the Israeli prime minister, we’re told, because of the high civilian casualties [in Gaza] and because seven aid workers have been killed.

You keep wondering why the United States isn’t withholding those weapons [it sends to Israel] to prevent these kinds of killings. That’s the big question in the United States and around the world.

At some point, members of the president’s own party are saying that maybe there should be some conditions attached to these weapons, but the president isn’t there yet, even as there have been 33,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza. But he’s under pressure to do so.

Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the US president’s caution, is planning a ground invasion into Rafah, which the US says is a mistake.

The US president is trying to encourage him to pursue alternatives.

Biden-Netanyahu call lasted less than 30 minutes

Biden has spoken with Netanyahu just moments ago, three days after Israel launched an attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, a White House official says.

The White House has described Biden as outraged and heartbroken by the attack, but the president has made no fundamental change in Washington’s steadfast support for Israel in its conflict against Hamas fighters.

The call between the two leaders lasted less than 30 minutes, a White House official said.


The White House has released a readout of Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu.

The US president told the Israeli prime minister that the US government expected “specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers” and “US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps”, according to the White House.

This is one of the most concrete threats Biden has made to Netanyahu after actions by the Israeli army that have caused international outrage, but it remains to be seen what follow-through there will be, if any, from a US policy perspective as the US continues to approve weapons transfers to Israel.

Biden ended the call with a pledge of support for Israel on “public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people”, referring to Iran’s promise to retaliate after strikes on its consulate in Damascus killed at least seven of its personnel.

“President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats,” the White House said

White House urges Israel aid action within ‘coming hours and days’

The White House says Israel must allow a “dramatic” increase of aid into Gaza within “hours or days,” after US President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that major changes are needed in the way the war is conducted.

“What we are looking to see and hope to see here in the coming hours and days is a dramatic increase in the humanitarian assistance getting in, additional crossings opened up, and a reduction in the violence against civilians and certainly aid workers,” US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

Biden-Netanyahu call ‘will have implications’

Mahjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, says there is nothing that so far indicates what Netanyahu’s response was to his call with Biden.

Netanyahu usually takes to social media or holds a press conference and “reflects on what happened in the phone call” because it’s his way to say he’s “challenging what has been talked about”, Zweiri said.

Biden is especially “frustrated and very upset” because he is reportedly a close friend to celebrity chef and founder of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity Jose Andres, Zweiri said.

An Israeli attack that killed seven WCK aid workers in Gaza this week “puts more pressure on Biden”, he added. “I would argue that this phone call will have implications,” Zweiri said.

US support for Israel’s defence ‘ironclad’ despite ‘frustration’: White House

US President Joe Biden’s tougher tone in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s war on Gaza reflected mounting “frustration” that Israel is not heeding demands to protect civilians, the White House has said.

“Yes, there’s been growing frustration,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters when asked whether the call reflected Biden’s frustration.

However, he added that the US’ support for “Israel’s self-defence remains ironclad”.

“They face a range of threats, and the United States isn’t going to walk away,” he said.


And Israel will only keep creating more threats to themselves if you keep shipping them bombs....

 



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SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

UN says nighttime ‘aid movements’ have resumed in Gaza

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says that “aid movements resumed tonight” after a 48-hour pause in nighttime movements.

The United Nations had suspended movements at night in Gaza to evaluate security concerns following the killing of seven workers from the World Central Kitchen food charity. The UN’s World Food Programme continued operations during the day, including daily efforts to send convoys to the north of Gaza, where famine is imminent, he said.

Dujarric also said teams with the World Health Organization (WHO) managed to speak to patients who were able to flee al-Shifa Hospital. The medical complex in Gaza City was raided by Israeli forces, who also besieged and heavily destroyed parts of it, before withdrawing earlier this week.

Survivors described “dark conditions during the siege, with no food, water or medicine available”, Dujarric said. Patients and doctors resorted to “putting salt and vinegar in people’s wounds in place of antiseptics, which are nonexistent,” he said.


Famine stalks Gaza as aid deliveries now in question

Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers in Deir el-Balah earlier this week has led many humanitarian organisations to express reluctance to continue operating inside the Gaza Strip for fear of repeat incidents.

This has driven fears among Palestinians that food shortages, which already have Gaza’s population on the brink of starvation, will get worse.









Israeli minister claims Qatar dishonest party in ceasefire talks

Nir Barkat, the country’s economy minister, told Bloomberg TV today that he does not trust the state of Qatar to act as a mediator with Hamas during ongoing talks to bring about a truce in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas and other groups there.

“They’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he told Bloomberg. “We must wake up.” Barkat also accused Qatar of “funding terror all over the world”.

The state of Qatar, which has repeatedly rejected allegations of supporting “terrorism”, has played a mediator role throughout Israel’s war on Gaza. It was instrumental in the first and only temporary cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, which saw the release of doznes of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Qatari prime minister on Wednesday stressed his country is not a party to the conflict but a mediator that has been committed from the beginning to the mediation process to ensure the safe release of the captives and that the war ends.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani also criticised the “irresponsible statements against Qatar” made by some politicians, who, he said, try to play a blame game “instead of being cooperative” and engaging constructively in order to find solutions.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment to Bloomberg on Barkat’s words, leaving it unclear whether his criticism represents an official position of Israel’s government. Barkat is a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party.

 

Hamas official says no progress in negotiations despite group’s flexibility

During a news briefing in Beirut, Hamas official Osama Hamadan has said that:

- Hamas delivered its response to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators late on Wednesday that upheld its position stated on March 14.
- The position includes that the Israeli aggression on Gaza has to stop and the Israeli forces have to fully withdraw; displaced people should be allowed to return to their homes, especially in northern Gaza; there should be extensive delivery of aid to all parts of Gaza and reconstruction should begin immediately; there should be a real and serious process to exchange people who are being held.

Hamdan also said that until now there has been no progress despite the flexibility shown by Hamas.

"The occupation government is still evading, and negotiations are stuck in a vicious circle,” he added.

 

Jordanians again flood the streets of capital in support of Palestinians

Video verified by Al Jazeera shows mass demonstrations on the streets of Jordan’s capital for the 12th day in a row.

As always, the protesters marched to the Israeli embassy, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, with some demanding a cancellation of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel.

 

More than 200 children held in Israeli jails, prisoners group says

There are currently more than 200 Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer says, including children from the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Despite an uptick in arrests since October 7, the group said Israel has been “systematically arresting and abusing” Palestinian children for decades.

“Israel is the only state in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children annually in military courts, lacking basic rights of fair trial,” it said, citing the group Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).

According to Addameer, the period following October 7 is considered to be “the toughest and harshest” on prisoners in general, and particularly on children.

Freed Palestinian prisoners have reported physical and psychological abuse in Israeli jails. Many are denied adequate amounts of food and water and are also denied healthcare and medical attention, which has led to several deaths.

Thousands of detainees, including at least 41 children, are currently held under administrative detention, Addameer added, meaning they are being held indefinitely without charge or trial.



SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

Some heart warming footage, amazing how people can still keep their spirits up in Gaza



SvennoJ on 04 April 2024

Germany sigh

UN Expert SHUTS DOWN Reporter’s Cover For Israel’s Gaza Genocide




Palestinian American Dr. Walks Out of Biden Meeting, Hands Him Letter from 8-Year-Old Orphan in Gaza



This week the White House canceled a planned Ramadan dinner after many Muslim American leaders refused to attend. Instead, Biden held a scaled-back meeting Tuesday with Muslim American community figures. The curtailed meeting was itself met with protests, including from Palestinian American emergency room physician Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who walked out after handing Biden a letter from an 8-year-old orphaned Palestinian girl named Hadeel that read, "I beg you, President Biden, stop them from entering Rafah."

Ahmad tells Democracy Now! that he also told Biden, "Make no mistake about it. It's going to be a bloodbath," before walking out.

Ahmad is a board member for MedGlobal who recently spent three weeks in Gaza volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. He joins us today to discuss the meeting with Biden, in which Ahmad was told he and other attendees would be the first people who had actually been in Gaza after October 7 to directly brief the president. "This meeting was not going to be impactful," says Ahmad, who shares how Biden's continued backing of Israel, even after its attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy left an American citizen dead, indicates that "nobody is safe" in the Gaza Strip.

About 6 months late but finally the news here starts paying attention

Global National: April 4, 2024 | WCK member Flickinger "died as a hero" in Gaza, family says




Biden Allies TURNING ON HIM After IDF Attack On José Andrés Aid Workers


 



LurkerJ on 05 April 2024

Starve a population for half a year, make them so desperate for food to the point they'd drown seeking or let it fall on their heads and kill them. Not enough? Gun them down in an open field and watch the dogs sniff their bodies as they take their last breath. The usual warning, don't watch if you can't stomach squid game level of depravity. 

Jesus fucking christ.

Stop this madness. 

Can anyone watch this and tell us with a straight face that the IDF investigations into its own crimes are meaningful in any way? Apparently the USA/UK spokesman and women can, how stupidly insulting are you? resign already.

It's been six months, and non of the investigations have led to any disciplinary action, and we know this because non of the investigations opened so far have had any impact on the brazenness behind these crimes. They're still being aired on tick-tock's, they don't even bother with hiding their faces. 

Can anyone with a straight face say the USA/UK are applying any real pressure when they're still supplying with arms?

Broken records.



SvennoJ on 05 April 2024

Indeed, verified by Aljazeera

Video shows Israeli soldiers opening fire on Palestinians collecting food

Exclusive footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers deliberately targeting Palestinians as they rushed to collect airdropped aid in northeastern Gaza on March 9.

The video shows Israeli soldiers opening fire despite none of these Palestinian men posing a threat. The firing continues even as the men leave the area, moving away from the border and the soldiers’ positions.

You can the video below (Warning – distressing images):



Will Western media show it?



The 5th of Friday is officially

Palestinian Children’s Day

On Palestinian Children’s Day, here’s a look at what life is like for children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank:

  • Eight out of 10 schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, UNICEF says.
  • 625,000 students have no access to education, the UN says.
  • 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
  • More than 50,000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished in Gaza, the UN says.
  • 30 percent of children under two years in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished, the World Food Programme says.
  • 31 children have died from starvation and hunger, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
  • More than 200 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer says.


No school for 620,000 children in Gaza: UNICEF

More than half of Gaza’s children (620,000) are unable to attend school due to the destruction wrought by six months of war on the enclave’s education system, warns the UN’s children’s fund (UNICEF).

Eight out of every 10 schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, with about 10 percent of the facilities totally decimated, said UNICEF.

But rebuilding the schools will be a simpler task than dealing with children’s trauma and loss of education, says David Skinner of Save The Children.

“What’s often lost about the coverage of Gaza is that this is a catastrophe for children,” Skinner said. “These are children who have been bereaved, who have lost people, who are sick and malnourished.”


Children killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza commemorated on Palestinian Child's Day

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240405-children-killed-by-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-commemorated-on-palestinian-childs-day/

Artists in Rafah create Graffiti to honour children killed in Israeli attacks for Palestinian Child's Day





Palestinian photographer wins regional World Press Photo competition

Palestinian photographer Mohammad Salem has won the World Press Photo contest for Asia for his photograph, A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece.

The photograph, which has been seen around the world, shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embracing the body of her five-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023.

Salem says taking the photograph in the Nasser Hospital morgue “was a powerful and a sad moment”.

“I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“People were confused, running from one place to another, anxious to know the fate of their loved ones, and this woman caught my eye as she was holding the body of the little girl and refused to let go.”





And all this is still not enough for the Orthodox union

Orthodox Union delivers 180,000 letters calling on Biden to keep backing Israel

The Orthodox Union has hand-delivered 180,000 letters to the White House calling on United States President Joe Biden to maintain his support for Israel’s war in Gaza, combat anti-Semitism and secure the release of Hamas’s captives.

The Union, one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organisations in the US, said the 180,000 letters signified the 180 days the captives have remained in captivity in Gaza.



Biden and Israel are doing the opposite, bombing, shooting and starving the hostages along with everyone else in Gaza.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 05 April 2024