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

SvennoJ on 14 May 2024

PA health minister: 80 percent of health care centres in Gaza out of service

The Palestinian Authority’s Majed Abu Ramadan said that responsibility for the dire state of Gaza Strip healthcare can be placed at the feet of Israel’s continued assault on the enclave.

Abu Ramadan also called for international intervention to save the health system in the Strip.

He added that the Palestinian Authority is working to send medical teams into Gaza to treat “difficult cases”, in light of Israel’s refusal to allow a “sufficient” number of wounded and ill Palestinians to leave the Strip for medical treatment.


ActionAid partner in Rafah pauses humanitarian operations

Wefaq, a local partner of the international charity, has said it paused humanitarian operations in the southern Gaza Strip city.

This came as ActionAid warned that aid operations could grind to a “complete halt” with aid workers facing an “unprecedented” level of danger that is making their jobs “impossible”.

The charity says that aid workers in Rafah are “experiencing the same inhumane living conditions as the rest of the population” and that “virtually no aid” has entered Gaza in recent days.

‘Inland in Rafah is now a ghost town’

UNRWA communications officer Louise Wateridge, who is in Gaza’s southernmost city, says Palestinian “families have moved as far west as possible, now reaching the shore and along the beach”.

In a post on X, she said large parts of Rafah had now become a “ghost town”.

“It’s hard to believe there were over 1 million people sheltering here just a week ago,” Wateridge added.


People in Gaza ‘tired of being displaced’

People in Gaza are drained, frustrated and exhausted. They have been displaced more than five or six times. I met a family that literally had to evacuate nine times.

People are tired of being constantly displaced. They’re also feeling hopeless because they know even being evacuated from one place to another does not guarantee they’re going to escape the Israeli air raids.

The other issue is people are out of space. They’re bringing all this stuff, including their tents. But unfortunately, there is no place to set up their tents.

Schools are crowded, hospitals are crowded, the empty land is crowded.


Displaced Palestinians arrive to set up tents on a beach near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza


Israeli army orders more evacuations in northern Gaza

Israel’s military has ordered the immediate evacuation of the al-Karama, Sultan and al-Zuhur neighbourhoods in northern Gaza because, it says, Palestinian fighters are firing rocket from them into Israeli territory.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said it will “act forcefully against them. For your safety, you must evacuate the area immediately to known shelters west of Gaza City.”

An estimated 450,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Israeli ground operations in both southern and northern Gaza over the past week.


Al Jazeera journalist documents escape to Deir el-Balah

Al Jazeera journalist Aziz al-Kahlout is among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Rafah during Israel’s lastest military offensive.

He narrates his harrowing journey from Rafah to Deir el-Balah.



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SvennoJ on 14 May 2024

‘Embrace the land with love’: Israelis call for Gaza resettlement

Far-right Israelis held a march in Sderot, near the border with Gaza, attended by ministers who called for the reoccupation of Gaza. It coincided with the anniversary of Israel’s creation in 1948, in which more than 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced.

Israeli’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, a member of the governing Likud Party, and hardline Knesset member Zvi Sukkot, of the Religious Zionist Party, were among those calling for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

“For preserving the security achievements that our soldiers lost their lives for, we must resettle Gaza with security forces and settlers that will embrace the land with love,” Karhi said.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said, “First, we must return to Gaza now. We are coming home to the holy land. And second, we must encourage migration – encourage the voluntary migration of the residents of Gaza. It is moral.”

 

Palestinian rally: ‘Your Independence Day is our catastrophe’

Thousands of people have taken part in an annual march through the ruins of villages that Palestinians were expelled from during the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation.

Wrapped in keffiyeh scarves and waving Palestinian flags, men and women rallied through the abandoned villages of al-Kassayer and al-Husha – many holding signs with the names of dozens of other demolished areas their families were displaced from.

“Your Independence Day is our catastrophe” was the slogan for the protest, which took place as Israelis celebrated the 76th anniversary of the proclamation of the State of Israel.

Among those marching was Abdul Rahman al-Sabah, 88. He described how members of the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary group, forced his family out of al-Kassayer near the northern city of Haifa when he was a child.

They “blew up our village, al-Kassayer and the village of al-Husha, so we would not return to them, and they planted mines”, he said, his eyes glistening with tears.




How Israel was created

Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, a day before the scheduled end of British rule, establishing a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home on land to which they cite ties dating to antiquity.

How the war on Gaza changed the narrative among young people

The Stream looks into how the war on Gaza has been reshaping global perceptions, particularly among youth in the West, and what potential long-term reforms that might bring.



SvennoJ on 14 May 2024

Debunking recent propaganda that the UN has supposedly halved the casualty numbers of women and children:

This VILE Pro-Israeli Claim Taken Apart




SvennoJ on 14 May 2024

‘My hope in 1948 was to return, my hope today is to survive’

Mustafa al-Gazzar, 81, recalls his family’s months-long flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah when he was 5 years old. At one point, they were bombed from the air. At another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.

Al-Gazzar, now a great-grandfather, was forced to flee again over the weekend, this time to a tent in Muwasi, a barren coastal area where some 450,000 Palestinians live in a squalid camp. He says the conditions are worse than in 1948, when the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was able to regularly provide food and other essentials.

“My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive,” he said. “I live in such fear,” he added, breaking into tears. “I cannot provide for my children and grandchildren.”


Palestinians carrying possessions as they flee after the creation of Israel in 1948


The new Nakba: ‘Forcible displacement will be called emigration’

Even before the war on Gaza, many Palestinians spoke of an ongoing Nakba in which Israel gradually forces them out of Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Yara Asi, a Palestinian assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, and others fear if another genuine Nakba occurs, it will be in the form of a gradual departure from Gaza.

“It won’t be called forcible displacement in some cases. It will be called emigration, it will be called something else,” Asi said. “But in essence, it is people who wish to stay, who have done everything in their power to stay for generations in impossible conditions, finally reaching a point where life is just not liveable.”



SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

The Occupation comes home - Max Blumenthal at UMass



Max Blumenthal spoke on May 8, 2024 at UMass-Amherst hours after state police brutally repressed an encampment of students protesting the US-backed genocide in Gaza. There, he addressed the Palestine solidarity uprising on campuses across the country, and explains how the elite reaction triggered by October 7 has exposed Israeli influence over the major American institutions, from academia to Congress to local law enforcement agencies.



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SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

US moving ahead with more than $1bn in weapons for Israel: Reports

The State Department is moving ahead with a more than $1bn package of weapons aid to Israel – including tank rounds, mortars and armoured tactical vehicles – US officials told domestic media.

The package, which is yet to be approved, includes the potential transfer of $700m in tank ammunition, $500m in tactical vehicles and $60m in mortar rounds.

Two anonymous US officials confirmed separately to the Reuters news agency that the weapons aid package had been moved into the congressional review process. Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees review major foreign weapons deals in the US.

The new weapons package comes after President Joe Biden said last week that the US had delayed a single shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (227kg) bombs to Israel over concerns they may be used against civilians in Israel’s invasion of Rafah.

 

Israeli lawyer’s tearful plea decrying Gaza war and aid attacks

Israeli human rights lawyer Sapir Sluzker Amran interjected at the end of her interview with Al Jazeera to provide a tearful plea condemning Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We condemn it, and we have to stop it. This is our moral obligation to fight, with our own people, with our own blood, in order to tell them what you’re doing is wrong,” she said.

Amran added that she was hurt trying to stop Israelis from attacking aid trucks and destroying supplies destined for Gaza.


Australia state parliament bans MPs from wearing Palestinian keffiyeh

The parliament in Australia’s state of Victoria has voted to ban members from wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh and other symbols representing Palestine in the legislative chamber, members of the Australian Greens Party said.

Greens MPs took to social media to protest the ruling, which one MP said was designed to “silence us”.

Greens party leader in Victoria Ellen Sandell said the ban “makes us one of the only parliaments in the world to ban the keffiyeh – on Nakba day, a day that marks the displacement of Palestinian people”.

“Victorians have watched in horror at the atrocities unfolding in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military. Yet Labor [Victoria and the country’s governing party] has signed a secretive MoU with Israeli Ministry of Defence & given $ to Israeli weapons companies,” Sandell said on social media.

Sandell said the Greens will move in parliament to make the memorandum of understanding with the Israeli military public.



It's banned here as well in our 'progressive' Canada
https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-mpp-asked-again-to-leave-ontario-legislature-over-keffiyeh-speaker-loosens-ban-1.6875240



SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

UNRWA headquarters faces ‘another arson attempt’ by Israelis

Israeli arsonists once again attacked the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem last night, according to the agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini.

“Another arson attempt by Israeli children and young people on @UNRWA in #Jerusalem last night. This has got to stop,” he said in a post.

On May 9, Lazzarini announced the agency would temporarily close its headquarters after several arson attacks in recent weeks and growing threats of violence against UN staff.



ICC prosecutor faces demands for action against Israel at UN Security Council

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan faced demands for swift action against Israeli leaders at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Libya’s UN ambassador, Taher El-Sonni, said genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being perpetrated by Israeli forces and the world expects the ICC “to be courageous and to issue arrest warrants against officials of the Israeli regime”.

“Don’t you see the threats against civilians, the potential threats against civilians in Rafah and the massacre that would happen at any time?”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the ICC of accomplishing nothing since it began a preliminary examination of abuses in the Palestinian territories in 2015 and a formal investigation in 2021.

Algeria’s deputy UN ambassador, Nacim Gaouaoui, expressed hope the ICC would take “a serious approach” to its Palestinian investigations and “demonstrate that it is not a tool used by some members of the international community to threaten whoever they want.”

Khan responded by telling the council that he will not be swayed or intimidated as his team investigates possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the Palestinian territories as well as in Ukraine and elsewhere.


Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli attack mourn on May 14


UN envoy: Israel ‘creates illusion’ of civilian protection in Gaza where ‘everyone is killable’

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territory, said sanitised jargon used by the Israeli military during its onslaught against civilians in Gaza is designed to “camouflage” killing.

Albanese said Israel’s use of terms from international humanitarian law – such as “evacuation orders” and “safe zones” – “create the illusion that its military operations ensure protection of civilians”.

The reality could not be further from the truth, she said in a post on social media.

“This ‘humanitarian camouflage’ has de facto turned Gaza into a place ‘without civilians’, where everything is destroyable & everyone is killable.”



SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

Israel’s ambassador to the UN says the UN cooperates with Hamas

Gilad Erdan told Israeli Army Radio that the UN “has become a terrorist body itself”.

“Since Israel withdrew from Gaza – the UN cooperates with Hamas, it covers for it, and the secretary-general is quick to condemn Israel for everything that gets published,” he claimed.

More than 35,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

Following the attack by Hamas, Guterres said: “I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets”.

Guterres has also repeatedly criticised Israel for its war on Gaza. He recently said Israel has brought “relentless death and destruction” to Palestinians in the Strip.

 

Australian senator breaks ranks, accuses Israel of ‘genocide’

Senator Fatima Payman has become the first member of the Australian Labor Party to call Israel’s war on Gaza a “genocide”, and called for her colleagues to “stand for what is right”.

In a thinly veiled swipe at her party leader, Australia’s PM Anthony Albanese, Payman criticised “performative gestures” on the issue and “gaslighting” about Israel’s right to self-defence.

“My conscience has been uneasy for far too long and I must call this out for what it is,” she said. “This is a genocide and we need to stop pretending otherwise. The lack of clarity, the moral confusion, the indecisiveness is eating at the heart of this nation.”

 

May be impossible to return all captives, says far-right Israeli MP

Zvi Sukkot, a member of Israel’s Knesset representing the far-right Religious Zionism Party, says it may be impossible to free all Israeli captives in Gaza and that “national security” concerns should take precedent.

“I wish it were possible to return all the hostages. I’m not sure that’s possible,” Sukkot told Israel’s Radio 103FM. “We need to do everything to return them but not anything that will critically harm national security.

“We think the way to return [the captives] is when Hamas understands it doesn’t have a choice but to return them,” Sukkot added, saying that he believes Israel should intensify its Rafah operation to put more pressure on the group.

There are 132 captives remaining in Gaza, Israel says, but at least 30 are believed to have died during the war.

Israeli officials voice concern over breakdown of relations with Egypt: Report

Israeli officials are concerned that Egypt’s defence and intelligence cooperation with it could be under threat due to the assault on Rafah, Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting.

“The situation with Egypt right now is the worst it’s been since the war started,” an official told Haaretz. “At the beginning of the war, the Egyptians showed understanding toward our position.”

After recent Israeli operations in Rafah, which included the seizure of the Rafah border crossing, the official said Egypt had worked deliberately to obstruct Israeli operations “and to try to force an end to the war”.

The official added that this was “something that’s never happened, not even during previous operations of ours in Gaza”.

 

Turkey will ‘continue to stand by Hamas’, says Erdogan

President Erdogan says Turkey will “continue to stand by Hamas, which is fighting for its own land’s independence and defending Anatolia”.

Anatolia is the peninsula that today constitutes the Asian portion of Turkey.

Hamas has had an office in Turkey since 2011, when Turkey helped secure the agreement for the group to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and Erdogan has maintained links with Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s political leader, who has been a frequent visitor.

Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said: “Israel will not stop in Gaza, and if not stopped, this rogue state will eventually target Anatolia with its delusions of [a] promised land.”

He said Israeli PM Netanyahu and “those complicit in genocide will be held accountable, we will ensure they face justice”.



SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

Palestinians say they face a second Nakba, but this time they are alone

Palestinians have been marking 76 years since the Nakba – the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948.

Back then, all Arab countries were united against Israel. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank say the ongoing war in Gaza and military expansion in the West Bank are clear evidence of a second Nakba. But this time, they are facing it alone.

Some recall the first Arab-Israeli war, where people from all walks of life fought and died for Palestine in 1948.

Adeeb Nazzal, from Qabatiya, said Iraqi soldiers had fought heroically side by side with Palestinians against Zionists in that war.

“Nowadays [Arab armies] have no say. Everyone is on their own. Everyone wants [to preserve] their own interests,” he said.


Palestinians flee from an unidentified village in Galilee some five months after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948

Palestinians suffering similar fate as ancestors during ‘Nakba’

Today marks the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian “Nakba”, which marks the period in 1948 in which at least 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their towns and villages and at least 15,000 killed by Israeli militias.

That brings us to the new reality Israel has set since October 7. We are experiencing similar situations. We are talking about more than 1.5 million Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes and more than 70 percent of Gaza’s residential units completely destroyed. The entire Strip is no longer suitable for human habitation. Palestinians are living in tents out in the open.

The new reality that Israel has created reminds us of what our Palestinian ancestors went through in 1948. Palestinians did not expect to one day meet the same fate as their ancestors.

Palestinians mark 76 years since the Nakba

Palestinians are marking 76 years since their forced displacement by Israeli forces in 1948, in an event known as the Nakba, or catastrophe. They say Israel’s continuing war on Gaza and the military expansion in the occupied West Bank are clear evidence that a second Nakba is happening today.

But unlike it 1948, when militaries from across the Arab world supported Palestine, this time they are facing the Nakba alone.



Palestinians decry lack of Arab support on Nakba Day

Palestinian historian Saleh Abd al-Jawad has told Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank that Israel’s actions today are even more violent than during the Nakba in 1948.

Currently, he said, “the killing is from one side”. “There is a civilian population killed with the most sophisticated American weapons, day and night. Minute by minute.”

During the first Nakba, 13,000 Palestinians died over three years. Since October 2023, more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

“In the West Bank, we’ve seen multiple raids and killings. There is an active genocide in Gaza,” Jenin Anzawi, from Jenin refugee camp, told Al Jazeera.

Mohammad Abu Ameera, also from Jenin refugee camp, said now Palestinians do not have the support of their Arab neighbours. “Gaza is at war by itself, it is fighting by itself, being slaughtered by itself,” he said, adding that Arab countries’ armies are not used to fight another country but instead are “used against their own people”.

Palestinian PM on Nakba Day: ‘We will not kneel’

On Nakba Day, Palestinian PM Mohammad Mustafa says Israel’s attacks on Gaza will not push Palestinians out of their land. In his remarks, he stressed that:

  • Palestinians remain committed to their homeland despite Israel’s continuous attempts to displace them.
  • Israel’s intensifying attacks in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, will not push Palestinians to “kneel, surrender, or leave”.
  • Growing global support for the Palestinian cause challenges Israel’s narrative and brings Palestine closer to achieving statehood.


Sirens sound throughout Palestinian territories to commemorate the Nakba

Sirens have gone off throughout Palestinian cities for 76 seconds, marking the 76 years that have passed since the “Nakba” in 1948.

As the sirens went off in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, “everyone fell silent and raised two fingers in the air” reports Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, from the city where a large crowd has congregated in the streets for the occasion.

It is “a very clear sign that there can only be peace in victory and that only victory will bring peace”, said Basravi.


Amnesty says Palestinians’ right of return endures 76 years on from Nakba

Israel’s ongoing displacement of nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza highlights its historic denial of Palestinians’ legal right of return, said Amnesty International in a statement marking the Nakba.

“This Nakba day the fate of Palestinians is more perilous than ever – dispossessed and subjected to systematic human rights violations under a brutal occupation – with those in Gaza also facing the imminent risk of genocide and grappling with famine,” said Amnesty’s Erika Guevara Rosas.

“That’s why today, it is more important than ever to make a resounding call for Palestinians’ right to return and to remind the world that Israel has been denying them this legitimate right, in flagrant violation of international law, for more than 76 years.”



SvennoJ on 15 May 2024

Israeli military carries out arrests and raids across the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have arrested a Palestinian man after storming his home in a neighbourhood in the south of the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, local media report.

The Israeli military has also arrested a man in the al-Irsal neighbourhood of el-Bireh city, according to local media, while a third man has been arrested in the town of Birzeit, north of Ramallah.

Israeli raids have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including:

  • The town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya.
  • The town of Izbat Shufa, near Tulkarem.
  • Gunfire has been reported after the Israeli military stormed the city of Nablus.



Israeli military arrests six people in occupied West Bank raids

The Israeli military has arrested three Palestinians, including two 15-year-olds, during raids on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, the Wafa news agency reported.

The report added that Israeli forces arrested another Palestinian in Husan village, west of Bethlehem, while in the Shu’fat camp near Jerusalem, two men were arrested and tear gas fired.

Israeli raids have also been reported in the towns of Yabad and Arrabeh in the Jenin governorate.


Israel arrests 20 Palestinians in occupied West Bank raids

Israel’s military has arrested 20 Palestinians, including two children and two former prisoners, in raids throughout the occupied West Bank since Tuesday evening, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Most arrests took place in Hebron governorate, while others were in the governorates of Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Jerusalem, according to the Prisoner’s Society.

This brings the total number of Israeli arrests in the West Bank since October 7 to 8,745, according to the group.

In addition to the arrests, 498 people, including 124 children and seven women, have been killed in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7.


Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian in el-Bireh

Israeli forces have shot and killed 20-year-old Aysar Muhammad Safi in the city of el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank, reports the Wafa news agency.

Safi, a student at Birzeit University near Ramallah, died in the hospital after being shot in the neck as Israeli forces attacked Palestinians, according to Wafa.

Israeli forces also fired tear gas and sound canisters at the Palestinian youth, injuring dozens.