Known as Project Nimbus, the joint contract between Google and Amazon signed in 2021 aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technology services to the Israeli government and its military, which has faced condemnation for its ongoing war on Gaza.

Activists and academics have been alarmed by Israel’s use of AI to target Palestinians, while legal scholars say the use of artificial intelligence in war violates international laws.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned the House of Representatives for passing an unconditional $17bn military aid package for Israel as it continues its devastating war on Gaza. The group urged Americans to press senators set to vote on the bill to shut it down.

“Given the Senate’s probable approval of this legislation, our nation risks deeper involvement in genocidal acts planned by Benjamin Netanyahu, fueled by new US weapons,” said CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert S McCaw.

The group added: “Should the bill proceed to a vote, CAIR is calling on all US senators to support and vote ‘Yes’ on Senator Bernie Sanders’ latest amendments to condition US military aid on whether Israel is violating human rights in Gaza, and restore funding for UNRWA so children in Gaza don’t starve.”

The independent US senator from Vermont has said that he is offering two amendments to a spending package that would provide billions of dollars in aid to Israel. It is due to be voted on in the Senate this week.

“1. NO unfettered military aid for Netanyahu’s war on the Palestinian people. 2. Restore funding for UNRWA so that children in Gaza don’t starve,” Sanders said on X. On Monday, Sanders said: “We cannot continue to fund this horrific war.”

The Senate will take up the package of four bills passed by the House of Representatives, including one slating $26bn for Israel.

Activists disrupt insurer AXA’s shareholders meeting in Paris

Activists are demanding that the company divest its holdings “that fuel Israeli apartheid”, a statement by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has said.

The activists set up a two-metre-high mock separation wall and a mock military checkpoint outside of the venue “to represent Israel’s system of apartheid and oppressive control over Palestinian lives that AXA helps finance”, BDS said.

AXA invests in Israel’s Bank Hapoalim, which according to Human Rights Watch is a key financier of Israel’s illegal settlements, the movement said. “AXA cannot maintain its silence and lies to evade responsibility; not even the best public relations officer can continue to mask the hypocrisy of the AXA group and the ineffectiveness of its policy on human rights,” said Fiona Ben Chekroun, BDS Europe coordinator.

The BDS statement said research by the corporate accountability group Eko had found that in December 2023, the AXA group withdrew from Israel Discount Bank and Leumi Bank. AXA, however, still holds shares (worth approximately $2.6m) in Bank Hapoalim, one of Israel’s largest commercial banks, listed by the United Nations for its financing of Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

Launched by Palestinian civil society groups in 2005, the BDS movement seeks to use non-violent means to pressure Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, ensure equal rights for Palestinian citizens and respect the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

The Israeli military said its warplanes had carried out overnight attacks on southern Lebanon, hitting five sites it claimed were Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure” in the vicinity of Yaroun village close to the border with north Israel.

Israeli ground forces also “attacked to remove a threat” in the Yaroun area more recently, the military said in a post on social media alongside grainy video apparently showing buildings being pulverised in air attacks on Lebanon.

At least one person in the car, near the town of Aadloun, was killed, reports Lebanon’s An-Nahar media, without noting the victim’s identity. It is the first time an Israeli strike has targeted a person driving in this area, according to An-Nahar.

The Lebanese group says it launched drone attacks on two Israeli bases in retaliation for the killing of two of its fighters, which we reported on earlier.

Hezbollah launched “a combined air attack using decoy and explosive drones that targeted” two Israeli bases north of the city of Acre, the group said in a statement. It added that it was “in response” to the Israeli drone attack earlier today which killed Hussein Azqul, who was with Hezbollah’s air defence unit in southern Lebanon.

Muhammad Attiya, a Radwan Force member, was another member killed in an overnight attack near the town of Arzon, according to the Israeli military. The attack marks Hezbollah’s deepest into Israeli territory since the Gaza war began.

An Israeli army raid on the southern Lebanese town of Hanine targeted a residential home and destroyed the two-storey structure, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported. It said ambulance vehicles are on their way to the scene of the attack.

A Lebanese medical source has told Al Jazeera that two people have been killed and four injured in this attack. The source said that this is a preliminary casualty count, and we will continue to update you on this attack as we get more information.

The report comes shortly after the Times of Israel cited the Israeli army as saying it struck two buildings in Aita al-Shaab and Blida in southern Lebanon, where it claimed fighters with the Lebanese group Hezbollah were gathered.

The Israeli army also reportedly said it attacked Hezbollah positions in the village of Markaba.

The number of people killed in Israel’s war on Gaza reached 34,183, the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry says. The death toll includes 32 people killed in the past 24 hours. Another 77,143 have been wounded in the six months of the war. More than 14,500 children and 9,500 women are among the dead, Gaza authorities say.

The death toll is likely far higher, with thousands of bodies believed buried in buildings destroyed in Israeli military strikes.

Homes targeted, destroyed in Gaza City as incessant strikes continue

Air attack kills one in Beit Lahia: Report

Satellite imagery shows tent city being built near Khan Younis

Will UAE and Egypt ‘coordinate’ with Israel on Rafah evacuation?

Aid workers say ‘no idea’ what Israel’s Rafah plan is

Search for mass graves continues at Nasser Hospital

After the Israeli military withdrew from Khan Younis earlier this month, residents have returned daily to Nasser Hospital in search of bodies of their loved ones with the aim of burying them in permanent graves elsewhere.

The civil defence agency says a total of 283 bodies have been recovered from the hospital yard since Friday. The International Committee of the Red Cross has given 1,500 body bags and protective gear to the medics to help dig up the grounds and move corpses.

“I came here for the fifth day looking for the body of my son Jamal. But unfortunately I did not find my son’s body,” said Raeda Abu al-Ola.

Civil defence workers continue to search for human remains. Israel has yet to comment on the killings and mass burials at the hospital.

UN rights chief Volker Turk says he’s “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there.

Turk, addressing a UN briefing via a spokesperson, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he noted killed mostly women and children. He also repeated a warning against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, saying this could lead to “further atrocity crimes”.

At least 35 more bodies have been found in a mass grave at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to civil defence crews, bringing the total number of bodies recovered there to at least 310.

Relatives of Palestinians killed in Khan Younis have been painstakingly searching for their loved ones’ remains, including around Nasser Hospital, since earlier this month when Israeli forces withdrew from the city.

Israel’s military has denied accusations that it buried Palestinians killed by its attacks in mass graves that are being uncovered around Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals. Those graves were not dug by Israeli forces, the military said, although it did say it exhumed some bodies and returned them as part of a search for Israeli captives.

“The examination was conducted in a careful manner and exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages,” Israel’s military said in a statement carried by the Reuters news agency. “The examination was carried out respectfully while maintaining the dignity of the deceased.”

This weekend, a Palestinian civil defence crew discovered a mass grave at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, which Israel’s military besieged and attacked in February. So far, they have found at least 310 bodies.

Another 30 bodies have been found in a grave at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, according to Palestinian officials.

Zainah Haroun, a spokesperson for Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian rights organisation based in the occupied West Bank, says the discovery of the mass graves at Nasser Hospital and previously at al-Shifa Hospital is “stark evidence of war crimes and of course the genocide which is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel”.

“Initial reports from Nasser Hospital show that some of the bodies of the killed people had their hands tied behind their back and some of the bodies were women and Palestinian people who were elderly, as well,” she told Al Jazeera.

Haroun said what was needed was “a proper investigative mechanism” to be given full and unrestricted access to the Gaza Strip as a whole, including the sites where mass graves have been uncovered.

“Most of the information that we’re getting at the moment is from incredibly brave Palestinian journalists who are reporting these horrific
atrocities on the ground and are also being targeted by Israel,” she added.

Haroun said one testimony gathered by Al-Haq from al-Shifa Hospital showed how “dire” the situation war.

“One family member was desperate to find just a trace of his uncle; he said that he found his sandals but even if he could find a body part, an arm or a leg, that they could at least take that and bury him so they’re able to sleep at night,” she added.

‘Need to raise the alarm’ on mass graves found: UN

Israel’s military has dropped 75,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip, turning much of its civilian infrastructure to rubble, apart from the devastating human toll, according to figures released by the government media office in the besieged territory, marking 200 days of war.

In total, the Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed:

• 380,000 housing units
• 412 schools and universities
• 556 mosques
• three churches
• 206 archeological and heritage sites.

In addition, the attacks have knocked 32 hospitals and 53 health centres out of service with 126 ambulances also targeted.

This destruction amounts to at least $30bn in economic losses, the media office said.

Mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and near-total destruction of infrastructure haunt Gaza as Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave entered its 200th day on Tuesday.

Israel launched its brutal military offensive on October 7 following a deadly attack by Hamas fighters. Some 1,139 people were killed and about 240 people were taken captive by the Palestinian fighters. Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,000 children have been killed in the offensive which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance.

Our colleagues at the Al Jazeera Explainers team have put together a comprehensive piece detailing the numbers that highlight the unprecedented level of violence unleashed by Israel on Gaza. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/by-the-numbers-200-days-of-israels-war-on-gaza

Israeli soldier killed in northern Gaza

Avichay Adraee, an army spokesperson, has issued a warning to Palestinians in certain parts of the northern Gaza Strip city, describing the areas as a “dangerous combat zone”.

He said on X the Israeli army “will use extreme force against terrorist infrastructure and subversive elements in the region”, telling residents to “evacuate the area immediately and head towards known shelters in blocks number 1770, 1766”.

Residents and officials in Gaza, as well as UN agencies and humanitarian organisations, have repeatedly said that “nowhere is safe” in the besieged and bombarded territory, pointing to Israeli attacks on places previously deemed “safe”.

The New York Police Department has said 133 people were arrested and released, after being issued with court summons, during pro-Palestine protests on the New York University campus. As protests also intensify at Yale, Columbia University and on other campuses, police began detaining demonstrators at an encampment at NYU.

A New York University spokesman said the decision to call police came after additional protesters, many of whom were not thought to be affiliated with NYU, breached the barriers erected around the encampment.

The protests began last week at Columbia University, also in New York, with a large group of demonstrators establishing the so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on school grounds.

There were also demonstrations at MIT, the University of Michigan and Yale, where at least 47 people were arrested Monday after refusing requests to disperse.

Students protest for Palestine on University of Michigan campus

Egyptian women arrested after gathering in solidarity with Gaza and Sudan

Washington’s special regional envoy for humanitarian issues David Satterfield has told reporters that Israel must do everything possible to facilitate efforts to avert a famine and called for more to be done to get aid to those in need, particularly in the north.

Saudi Arabia condemns discovery of mass graves in Gaza’s Khan Younis

US says reports on mass graves in Gaza are troubling

Troubling is quite the understatement. And if there are mass graves in hospital compounds and schools that people are trying to restore, you wonder how many more mass graves there are in more secluded areas.


This is not the first time mass graves have been found

November 17th https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/israel-accused-more-war-crimes-after-30-bodies-found-gaza-school-784990

Israel accused of more war crimes after 30 bodies found in Gaza school. The bodies were discovered in the Khalifa bin Zayed school in Beit Lahia in north Gaza – an area which had been besieged for weeks.

December 17th https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/mass-grave-122-palestinians-found-gaza

This one got through to US media

'This is a crime against humanity': Gaza doctor on mass grave uncovered at hospital

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/04/23/nasser-hospital-gaza-massive-grave-bashir-pkg-ovn-digvid.cnn

A mass grave has been uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense workers said, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.

Humanitarian workers have no knowledge of plans to evacuate Palestinians from Gaza’s southernmost city ahead of an expected Israeli assault, but such a transfer would not be possible under current conditions, a Red Cross official has told AFP.

“When we see the level of destruction in the middle area [of Gaza] and in the north, it’s not clear to us where people will be moved to, … where they can have decent shelter and essential services,” said Fabrizio Carboni, Middle East regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“So today, with the information we have and from where we stand, we don’t see this [massive evacuation] as possible,” he said on the sidelines of an aid conference in the United Arab Emirates.

More than 1.5 million people of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million had sheltered in Rafah, the last major population centre in Gaza that Israeli ground troops have yet to enter.

“We don’t see for the time being any plans for civilian evacuations,” Carboni said during the interview at the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference. But “there is no condition for a military operation without devastating humanitarian consequences,” he added.

“Considering the level of destruction, considering that people are tired, some of them wounded and sick, and the limited access to food and essential services, I see [evacuations] as extremely challenging.”

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says the Israeli military will likely carry out a “new massacre” in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, after the army issued new evacuation orders to people who have remained in the area.

Israeli forces will be “wipe out the last remnants” of Beit Lahiya, and will cause yet another wave of mass displacement in the area, where some 50,000 Palestinians reside, the monitor said in a statement.

Earlier, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X the military “will use extreme force against terrorist infrastructure and subversive elements in the region”, telling residents to “evacuate the area immediately and head towards known shelters in blocks number 1770, 1766”.

However, rights groups have repeatedly said that “nowhere is safe” in the besieged territory, pointing to Israeli attacks on places previously deemed “safe”. The shelters the Israeli army asked Palestinians to flee to, Euro-Med said, are destroyed areas that are “unfit for any form of life, and lack water supply as well as functioning sewage systems”.

Unions speak up for students disciplined for pro-Palestine protests

A group called No Tech For Apartheid says Google fired at least 20 more workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid its war on Gaza.

It said that brings the total number of terminated staff to at least 50.

This is the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centred on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2bn contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling police, who made arrests.

US pro-Palestine campus protests spread to Minnesota

Palestine solidarity rallies held at Columbia, Yale, Harvard and New York University

US police arrest Pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters outside Senator’s New York home