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

SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Gaza conflict has caused major environmental damage, UN says

The conflict in Gaza has created unprecedented soil, water and air pollution in the region, destroying sanitation systems and leaving tonnes of debris from explosive devices, according to a UN report on the environmental impact of the war.

A preliminary assessment from the UN Environment Programme says the war has swiftly reversed limited progress in improving the region’s water desalination and wastewater treatment facilities, restoring the Wadi Gaza coastal wetland, and investments in solar power installations.

Explosive weapons have generated some 39 million tonnes of debris. Each square metres of the Gaza Strip is now littered with more than 107kg (236 pounds) of debris, which is more than five times the debris generated during the battle for Mosul, Iraq, in 2017, the report said.


Palestinians still being targeted in ‘safe zone’

The attacks are in the central area of Gaza, where the Israeli forces a month ago called Palestinians from Rafah to evacuate because it’s designated as a safe zone. More than one million Palestinians evacuated to Nuseirat, Deir el-Balah and other parts of the central area, and they’re still being targeted.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 25 Palestinians were killed since the morning, and 17 were in the middle area. Dozens of others injured were transferred to al-Ahli Hospital.

The hospital is running on one generator. It’s lacking medical supplies and the doctors are overwhelmed with the number of injuries they are receiving every day. Behind me is a new extension the hospital made to receive patients because the hospital is crowded. There are no beds; people are lying on the floor.

The hospital needs at least 4,000 litres of fuel every single day, but the hospital is trying to ration as much fuel as possible because there has been no guarantee that they will receive fuel every single day.


UN says lawlessness in Gaza impedes aid via Kerem Shalom despite Israeli military pause

Israel’s military said on Sunday there would be a daily pause in its attacks from 0500 GMT until 1600 GMT until further notice along the road that leads from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and northwards in Gaza.

The UN welcomed the move, spokesperson Farhan Haq has said, but added that “this has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need.”

He said the area between Kerem Shalom and the Salah al-Din road was very dangerous. “Fighting is not the only reason for being unable to pick up aid … The lack of any police or rule of law in the area makes it very dangerous to move goods there,” he said.

“But we are ready to engage with all parties to ensure that aid reaches people in Gaza, and we’ll continue to work with the authorities and with security forces, trying to see what can be done to have security conditions,” Haq said.

“When aid gets to a place, people are starving, and they’re worried that this may be the last food that they see,” he said. “They have to be assured that there’s going to be a regular flow of goods so that there’s not a panic when we get to the area.”



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SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Netanyahu says Blinken assured him US will cancel limits on weapons supplies

Netanyahu says that Blinken has assured him that the Biden administration is working to cancel restrictions on arms deliveries to Israel.

Netanyahu in a statement said that when he met Blinken last week, he expressed appreciation for the support the US has given Israel since the start of the war. But he also said it was “inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel”.

Blinken, Netanyahu said, assured that the administration was working “day and night” to remove such bottlenecks. “I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case,” Netanyahu said. “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

Blinken: US arms shipment to Israel still under review

Blinken says Washington is still reviewing one shipment of large bombs for Israel over concerns that they could be used in densely populated areas.

Blinken was asked at a news conference about the status of arms shipments after Netanyahu said Blinken assured him last week that the Biden administration was working to remove restrictions on arms shipments.

In mid-May, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed reports in testimony before Congress that the US paused “one shipment of high payload munitions” to Israel.

Netanyahu slams US for ‘withholding’ weapons to Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised the administration of President Joe Biden for “withholding weapons” to Israel in recent months as it presses its war on Gaza.

Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday that it was “inconceivable” that the United States had been “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel” in recent months.

“Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case,” Netanyahu said, referring to talks the top US diplomat held in the country last week.

Read more here.

It's one shipment of 2,000 pound bombs... I guess Netanyahu wants them for Lebanon now.



SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Prominent Gaza doctor dies in Israeli custody: Report

A prominent Palestinian doctor died while in Israeli police custody just six days after he was detained, Israeli outlet Haaretz reported. This report comes hours after the Gaza Health Ministry announced his death.

Dr Iyad al-Rantisi, 53, the head of a women’s hospital section of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s city of Beit Lahiya, was detained by the Israeli army last November, according to the outlet. He died at the Shikma prison, an interrogation facility of Shin Bet, Isreal’s domestic intelligence agency, in southern Israel’s Ashkelon, Haaretz said.

Shin Bet said they arrested the doctor because he was suspected of being involved in hiding Israeli captives, according to the paper.

According to Dr Husam Abu Safia, the manager of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, al-Rantisi was detained at an army checkpoint while attempting to make the journey from north to south Gaza, following the Israeli military’s orders for evacuation purposes at the start of the war, Safia told Haaretz.

The Israeli Justice Ministry has ordered an investigation into Rantisi’s death.

Action must be taken on alleged complicity of Israeli doctors in torture

As the practice of torture persists across the world, too often medical workers are at risk of becoming complicit. One country that has come under the spotlight recently regarding medical complicity in torture has been Israel.

For years, human rights organisations have reported “widespread and systematic” use of torture by Israeli security forces and prison authorities. The Israeli NGO Public Committee against Torture (PCATI) has filed over 1,400 torture complaints against Israeli authorities since 2001.

Since October 7, allegations of ill-treatment and torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention have sharply increased. According to media reports, at least 40 Palestinians have died in Israeli military detention and 16 in prison over the past eight months.

These numbers represent a substantial increase when compared to the average of four deaths per year from 1967 to 2019.

Read more of this opinion piece here.



SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Protests in Israel against Netanyahu government continue







Translation: The continuation of violence against the activists of ‘Change direction’ in Jerusalem.

UN rights chief warns situation in West Bank ‘dramatically deteriorating’

The top United Nations human rights official has warned of the worsening situation for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the “unconscionable death and suffering” in the Gaza Strip.

“The situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is dramatically deteriorating,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today.

He said 528 Palestinians, 133 of them children, were killed by Israeli military forces or settlers from the start of the war on Gaza in October to June 15, “in many cases raising serious concerns of unlawful killings”.

In the same period, 23 Israelis were killed in clashes with Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel, including eight members of security forces, according to the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.


Military vehicles manoeuvre during an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

 

Several dead, injured in Israeli bombing in Gaza City

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that an Israeli bombing has struck the house of the Abu Safiya family in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, in the north of Gaza City, leaving several people killed and wounded.

Moreover, they said Israeli naval boats were firing heavy artillery at the western areas of the Beach Camp in Gaza City.

 



SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Israeli War on Lebanon Looms - w/. Nasser Elamine




Mehdi Hasan Exposes Pro-Zionist Audience’s Belligerent Ignorance





Still at it

CNN Airs BLATANT Oct 7 LIES

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 18 June 2024

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SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

This was already reported on in December and the general plans were already known a year before, yet apparently the IDF had even more concrete information on an imminent attack.

Israel Knew 3 Weeks Before Oct 7 Of Hamas Plan To Take 200 Hostages




SvennoJ on 18 June 2024

Israel military bombs tents in al-Mawasi ‘humanitarian zone’, killing at least 7: Report

The Israeli military has bombed tents belonging to displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, northwest of Rafah in Gaza, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens more, the Wafa news agency reports.

Wafa reports that tents also caught fire following the strike in al-Mawasi, which the Israeli military has previously designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians displaced by attacks elsewhere in Gaza.

The Israeli military has also bombed tents southwest of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Wafa, with no casualties reported so far.

Israeli forces have also bombed the Saudi neighbourhood west of Rafah in southern Gaza and several homes in al-Mughraqa, north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, with no confirmed casualties so far.


Death toll updated for Israeli strike in Gaza City, at least 6 killed

An Israeli air attack on a home in Gaza City has killed at least six people, including women and children, our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues are reporting. Earlier, we reported that the Israeli military had bombed the Abu Safiya family home in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City.

There have also been reports of Israeli naval boats firing heavy artillery at the western areas of the Beach Camp in Gaza City.

Translation: Six Palestinians, including children and women, were killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a residential apartment inside a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, north of Gaza City | Report: Ismail Al-Ghoul



White House denies Netanyahu claim that US holding up weapons shipments

The Biden administration has bristled at claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US is withholding sending weapons for Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Let me just start off by saying that we genuinely do not know what he’s talking about,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday, the AFP news agency reports.

With the exception of “one particular shipment of munitions”, Jean-Pierre said, “there are no other pauses. None”.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said earlier on Tuesday that Washington is “continuing to review one shipment” of 2,000-pound (907kg) US bombs for Israel’s military over fears the massive explosive would be used in Israel’s current attack on Rafah city, where tens of thousands of civilians remain sheltering despite more than 1 million fleeing the Israeli military onslaught.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said that while he appreciated US support during the Gaza crisis, he also said he told Blinken, “It’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.”


Palestinian children collect an empty US ammunition container discarded by Israeli forces in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16

 



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

US military’s Gaza aid pier ‘largely failed’, will end operations ‘weeks earlier’ than planned: Report

The US military-built temporary humanitarian aid pier off the coast of Gaza has largely failed in its mission and will end operations weeks earlier than expected, the New York Times reports, citing aid organisations.

Repairs and security concerns mean the $230m pier, which was built by the US military, has only been operational for a total of 10 days since humanitarian aid started arriving via the pier on May 22.

The Biden administration initially predicted that surging seas would make the pier inoperable come September, but military officials are now warning aid groups that the pier could be dismantled as early as July, according to the Times report.

The pier aimed to boost the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza in response to Israel’s blockade of land routes, but it has failed to meet even the modest goals set for it. US officials hope that warnings about the pier’s impeding closure will pressure Israel into opening more land routes, according to the Times.

Environmental impact of Israel’s war on Gaza will take ‘decades to unwind’: Researcher

Patrick Bigger, a US-based climate policy researcher, said the destruction of Gaza’s environment resulting from Israel’s war on the territory will take decades to recover, if ever.

“The social and environmental crisis in Gaza did not start on October 7. It has already been deteriorating quite a bit for the past 15 years. But the unprecedented bombardment of Gaza by [Israeli forces] has created some really serious environmental challenges that are going to take decades to unwind,” Bigger told Al Jazeera in an interview.

“The water situation is particularly dire,” Bigger said, noting that the eastern Mediterranean region has already been identified as a “climate change hotspot that was already having serious impacts on both the quality and availability of water”

Gaza’s water supply is now even further degraded “through the direct impacts of the bombardment” and the environment has been damaged by the “emergency responses that Gazans have had to take in order to just access whatever quantity of water that they can right now”.

“The pollution of untreated sewage off the coast of Gaza – these are really serious impacts that are difficult if not impossible to remediate,” he said.


Severe water shortage after Israeli forces destroyed all wells

Our colleagues on the ground in Gaza are reporting that crises are worsening in northern Gaza, including a lack of water as the Israeli forces have destroyed all wells, according to the Northern Gaza Emergency Committee.

Trucks loaded with water are now being brought in from Gaza City in an attempt to help people get some water. “I have no energy. I can’t carry the water. We came here with our children and grandchildren to get get a gallon of water which is not enough at all,” a Palestinian woman told Al Jazeera.

“We need more water for us only to drink. In the north, we have starvation and the severe shortage of drinking water. The water here is mixed with sewage, which poses a great danger to people’s health. We all suffer different kinds of diseases.”

A Palestinian man said that the situation in Jabalia refugee camp was very difficult. “We wait long time for the water truck to arrive and to get one gallon or one bucket of water just to drink. There is famine and we face starvation.”



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Questions over why Israel hid reported death of Palestinian doctor in detention months ago

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, says it is “not clear” why the Israeli military hid the death of Palestinian doctor Iyad al-Rantisi for months after he reportedly died at a Shin Bet interrogation centre in November last year.

Barghouti noted the news was only reported on Tuesday after Israel’s Haaretz newspaper “was given permission” to publish an article detailing al-Rantisi death.

Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government, while Israeli media are required to submit articles on certain topics related to the war to Israel’s Chief Censor, according to a memo released in December last year.

As we reported earlier, al-Rantisi’s family and the organisations representing Palestinian prisoners held in Israel said they had still not been informed of al-Rantisi’s fate on Tuesday, after the Haaretz report of his death was published.

Wells, olive trees destroyed in Israeli settler attacks

Our colleagues in the occupied West Bank are reporting that Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinians took place across the region on Tuesday, including in Burin, south of Nablus, and Yasouf, northeast of Salfit, where they destroyed crops and demolished a well. In Burqa, east of Ramallah, they set olive trees on fire.

On average, there are four such attacks witnessed daily. The UN has documented 962 settler attacks since October 7, which have led to the destruction of 43,000 Palestinian-owned trees and saplings.


Israel forces arrest 20 Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have arrested 20 more people as its raids widen in the occupied West Bank, reports the Wafa news agency. The forces arrested 17 people in the town of Dhahriya, south of Hebron, two people in Askar camp in Nablus governorate, and one person in Hebron city.

The arrests come after our earlier reports of Israeli soldiers shooting four people during a raid on Qalqilya, while carrying out a spate of arrests in the town of Jayyous, to the north.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Ocasio-Cortez says ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu should not address US Congress

US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said Benjamin Netanyahu is a “war criminal” with “no regard” for US law, after the Israeli Prime Minister released a video criticising the Biden administration for “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel”.

Netanyahu’s invitation to address the US Congress on July 24 should be revoked, Ocasio-Cortez added, in a post on X.

US Republican and Democratic leaders issued an invitation to Netanyahu to give an address weeks after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor announced he was seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes.

Edward Snowden says Netanyahu ‘running campaign ads for Trump’

Netanyahu’s video message slamming the Biden administration shows the Israeli Prime Minister is “predictably running campaign ads for Trump,” says US whistleblower Edward Snowden, in a post on X.

Biden’s support for Netanyahu earned him the nickname “Genocide Joe” while “torching his electoral chances and 80 percent of Gaza”, said Snowden.

Netanyahu did not specifically refer to Trump, who is Biden’s main rival in the upcoming US presidential election in the video, but Snowden said it showed Netanyahu and Biden had a “perfectly Scorpion-and-the-Frog” relationship.

Netanyahu attacks US for ‘not sending him bombs fast enough’: Senator

US Senator Bernie Sanders said his country should withhold sending Israel “all offensive military aid” after the Israeli prime minister attacked the pace at which the US was supplying him bombs to use in Gaza.

Israel has a right to defend itself, Sanders said, but it “does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people”.

“Yet that is exactly what has happened,” Sanders said. “The right wing extremist Netanyahu government has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 85,000. 60 percent of whom are women, children or elderly,” he said.

“It is absurd that Netanyahu has been invited to address Congress. We should not be honouring people who use the starvation of children as a weapon of war,” he added.


White Houses axes US-Israel meeting after Netanyahu video

The White House has called off a high-level meeting with Israeli officials after PM Netanyahu released a video lambasting the US for what he said was a delay in weapons shipments, according to US news outlet Axios.

President Biden’s senior advisers were “enraged” by the video and his team was “shocked by Netanyahu’s ingratitude”, reported Axios, citing two US officials.

The cancellation of the meeting, while some Israeli officials were already on their way to Washington, “makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts”, one of the officials told Axios.

Publicly, as we reported, the White House voiced confusion at Netanyahu’s video statement, saying only “one particular shipment” of munitions had been paused.