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

SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Israeli attacks in Gaza likely repeatedly violated laws of war: UN rights office

A new report by the UN’s human rights office has looked into six Israeli attacks in Gaza with high casualty tolls and determined that its forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack”.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 have wrecked much of the enclave and killed at least 37,372 people, with 40 percent of these victims being children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.


Israeli authorities responsible for war crimes, UN inquiry finds

A UN Human Rights Council session is under way to discuss a report into the actions in Gaza since October 7. An inquiry has concluded that Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has released a report on war crimes in Gaza.

Israel’s actions are ‘intentional and direct attack on civilian population’: UN

Speaking in Geneva, Navi Pillay, chairwoman of the UN-backed commission, said Israel “forcibly transferred almost the entire population into small enclosure that is unsafe and uninhabitable”. “The deliberate use of heavy weapons with large destructive capacity in densely populated areas constitutes an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population.”

Sexual, gender-based violence part of Israeli forces’ operating procedures: UN

Pillay says the commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constitute part of the Israeli security forces’ operating procedures.

“Although Israeli officials have repeatedly stated their operations in Gaza are intended to destroy Hamas and release hostages, yet neither of these aims has been largely achieved at the expense of thousands of lives,” she said.

“We found that Israeli forces committed sexual and gender-based violence with the intent to humiliate and further subordinate the Palestinian community. Palestinian women were targeted and subjected to sexual violence and harassment online and in person.

“Men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts, including sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and inhuman and cruel treatment.”


UN commission addresses Israeli violence in West Bank

The daily onslaught in Gaza has largely overshadowed a parallel wave of violence in the occupied West Bank, Pillay says.

Since the Gaza war began in October, she noted, more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers there than in any other recorded period. The violence is due to both Israel’s increasingly militarised operations and a “surge in settler violence” often ignored by Israeli forces, she said.


UN commission condemns alleged war crimes by Palestinian groups

UN commission of inquiry head Navi Pillay says Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also committed extensive war crimes, including sexual violence, during the war. She listed the crimes as:

  • Intentionally directing attacks against civilians
  • Murder or wilful killing
  • Torture
  • Sexual violence
  • Inhuman or cruel treatment
  • Taking hostages

The UN commission, she said, “identified patterns indicative of sexual violence and concluded that these were not isolated but perpetrated in similar ways in similar locations, primarily against Israeli women”.

However, she warned the “exploitation of sexual violence in conflict by all parties for political propaganda risks diverting attention from the experience and from the needs of the survivor, as well as fueling longstanding hostilities”.

UN reiterates call for ceasefire, ‘full end of siege’, release of all detainees

Pillay says the UN reiterates its call for a ceasefire and for the “complete cessation of hostilities”.

“We call for the immediate and for the full end of the siege, the release of all detainees, including all of the Israeli hostages, and for Palestinian armed groups to stop the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel,” she said. Pillay added that all parties must protect civilians and civilian objects and “attacks against UN agencies and humanitarian actors must stop”.

The UN calls on Israel to ensure the commission’s “immediate access to the Gaza Strip in order to investigate and preserve evidence in compliance with the order issued by the ICJ [International Court of Justice]”.

“Israel has ignored the request we have submitted to them,” she said.



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SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Palestinian ambassador comments on UN commission report

Ibrahim Khraishi, Palestinian ambassador to the UN, has given his comments to the UN commission of inquiry in Geneva. He thanked the commission for their investigation, which he noted Israel did not cooperate with.

He then went through a series of abuses he says Israeli forces have committed during their “genocidal war”, including using starvation as a weapon, intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, and holding prisoners without charge.

He asked the commission “what measures can be taken” if such abuses continue unabated. The ambassador also reaffirmed “our position to refuse the targeting of civilians” in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.

UN commission report ‘compelling’, will influence Western capitals

Toby Cadman, a UK-based international human rights lawyer, says the UN commission of inquiry’s report documenting alleged war crimes in Gaza is “strong, compelling and very much expected”.

He said the report is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the conduct of Israel, which has so far been unphased by such reports, but could be used as evidence in future legal proceedings and give pause to Israel’s donor countries.

"We have seen a shift in policies in Western capitals,” Cadman told Al Jazeera. “This will be further evidence as to the intent and conduct of Israeli authorities. It will have to – and should – cause all capitals to consider the extent to which support is provided to Israel in the ongoing conflict.”

UN commission of inquiry ‘completely overlooked’ reality

Meirav Leshem Gonen, a mother of a 23-year-old woman being held captive by Hamas, has spoken at the UN session.

She said she spoke on the phone with her daughter while she was trying to escape from Hamas and heard her “helplessness and frustration without being able to help her”. “That was 257 days ago,” she said, adding that family members do not have adequate information about their health condition and status.

“The enforced disappearance of the hostages by Hamas constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment. Both to the hostages and to the family members, this reality was completely overlooked by the commission of inquiry,” Gonen said.

“Mr President, we should be on the same side – the side fighting hostage-taking, never accepting the use of young women as tools for trade. Please help me hug my daughter again.”



Denying commission access to Gaza ‘a major setback’ for Israel

Sultan Barakat, professor of public policy at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says that with Israel repeatedly denying the UN commission access to Gaza so it could investigate and obtain firsthand testimonies, it is “a major setback” for Israel.

The ICJ asked the commission on May 24 to report its findings, which will add to the growing evidence against Israel in the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC), he said, adding that he suspects Israel will continue to accuse the international community of “following a systematic anti-Israeli discrimination position”.

“The fact today that they’ve allowed the mother of one of the hostages to speak instead of a diplomat is probably support that they do not really give any weight to the international community’s will and findings,” he said.

They will continue the way they’re working until they’ve achieved all their objectives.”


‘We have never seen anything like this’: UN Commission of Inquiry head

Discussing Israel’s war on Gaza, UN Commission of Inquiry head Navi Pillay says they “have never seen anything like this, to this extent.”

“Even the attack on UN is unprecedented. The number of victims, unprecedented. It’s never happened before,” she told Al Jazeera in Geneva following her briefing at the UN Human Rights Council session. “The figures are unbelievable.”

She added that the commission will be releasing further reports looking into other issues such as attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the war’s effect on the education of children.

The next reports will be delivered before the UN General Assembly in New York, she said.


Israel denying commission access to OPT and Israel ‘tragic’, Pillay says

Pillay says she thinks “it’s tragic” that Israel is preventing the commission from visiting victims inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, despite the the ICJ ordering that the UN commission be allowed access.

She told Al Jazeera the team has repeatedly requested access but that Israel has not responded.

“What I found particularly disturbing is they not only deny us access into Israel and Gaza, but the whole of Palestine; we need to talk to victims there as well,” Pillay said.

“There’s been some complaints that we’ve not investigated sexual violence fully on the part of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian women. Well, we need to get there to speak to the victims ourselves.”



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

US climbers hang ‘Stop the Genocide’ banner in Yosemite National Park

Mountain climbers of the Climbers With Palestine activist group scaled the renowned El Capitan rock formation in California’s Yosemite Valley to hang the banner as part of a 24-hour demonstration to draw attention to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“We’re taking our message to the most iconic climb in the most-visited valley in one of the most-visited national parks,” said Emily Weinstein, a Jewish American writer who lives in Berkeley and co-founder of the climbing group.

“We want to use the space and scale of Yosemite to spread our message,” Weinstein was quoted as saying by the San Francisco Chronicle.


Climbers With Palestine, a rock climbing activist collective, hang a banner reading “Stop the genocide” from El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California, on June 17

Families of Israeli captives protest in Knesset

Israel’s Channel 12 is reporting that relatives of Israeli captives have staged a demonstration inside Knesset. Footage posted on Israeli social media channels, verified by Al Jazeera, shows the protesters holding signs and shouting slogans calling for snap elections.

The demonstration comes as thousands of antigovernment activists press on with a “week of resistance” in Israel, urging for a ceasefire deal to bring the captives home and elections for a new government.

Translation: Families of captives are calling in the Knesset demanding to promote a deal.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Nuseirat refugee camp comes under attack: Report

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting intense Israeli artillery shelling, smoke rounds and drone attacks on residential houses northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Movement of Israeli military vehicles has also been reported north of the camp in what appears to be a coordinated mobilisation to coincide with the bombardment.


Israeli strike kills one Palestinian in Rafah

An Israeli strike has killed one person in the Oreiba area, north of Rafah. The attack comes after our earlier reports of Israeli bombardment of tents in Mawasi, northwest of Rafah, which killed at least seven people and injured dozens.

Israeli drones, vehicles and gunboats have also fired at areas in Nuseirat camp, causing at least one home to catch fire.


Israelis conduct ‘dozens of’ air raids; Palestinians battle in central, south Gaza: Monitors

Israeli forces stationed along the Netzarim Corridor – the military-built road that dissects northern and southern Gaza – continued to come under mortar and rocket fire from Palestinian fighters on Tuesday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) report.

Israel’s air force also reported carrying out “dozens of” air raids across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the US-based think tanks say in their latest battlefield report.

Three Palestinian armed groups reported carrying out attacks on Israeli forces in Rafah city’s Tal as-Sultan and Shaboura neighbourhoods where Israeli troops are continuing to “destroy military infrastructure above and below ground”, the ISW-CTP joint report states.

The report also references an Israeli military radio correspondent who said military officials estimate that 15,000 Hamas fighters remain in Gaza, with some 2,000 still based in the north of the territory.

Four “indirect fire attacks on southern Israel” involving mortars and rockets were also launched towards Israel from Gaza on Monday, the report adds.

An Israeli tank patrol in the Zeitoun area of northern Gaza’s Gaza City on June 3


Safe zone, refugee camp targeted by Israeli forces

A reminder that several Palestinians are feared dead in a new wave of attacks by Israeli forces on a refugee camp and a so-called safe zone in Gaza. Five air raids have been reported in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Israeli forces have stepped up their attacks in Mawasi area, a narrow coastal strip that was designated as a ‘humanitarian zone’ near the southern city of Rafah. Seven people have reportedly been killed there.


Children were sleeping when Mawasi tents attacked, says witness

A displaced woman in Mawasi has given details about Israel’s attack on a tent camp there that killed at least seven people. Fatima al-Qiq, an elderly woman staying in the camp, said an Israeli shell hit the tents in the designated safe zone while children were asleep, setting part of it ablaze.

“We were hit by Israeli shelling in a supposedly safe area … the children were sleeping here”, al-Qiq said, adding that if rescuers had not intervened, the place would have been entirely burned down.


Gaza death toll rises

Israeli military attacks in Gaza have killed 24 people and injured 71 in the last 24 hours, reports the enclave’s Health Ministry. Numerous victims are still trapped in areas rescuers are unable to reach, it said.

The latest casualties bring the total number of people killed in Gaza since October 7 to 37,396, with 85,523 wounded.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Israeli warplanes attack southern Lebanon targets

Israeli Air Force jets attacked several sites in southern Lebanon that the military said were linked to the Hezbollah armed group.

“Terrorist structures” were attacked in the Taybeh, Odaisseh and al-Jebbayn areas, while a “military building” was hit in the Ayta ash Shab area, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on social media.

The Israeli military also said that its air defences had “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target” over maritime space in northern Israel’s Ziv Bridge area.

Israeli air attack in Syria kills army officer

Israel’s military has carried out a series of air attacks on military sites in the Syrian provinces of Quneitra and Deraa, says Syria’s Defence Ministry in a post on Facebook. The attacks killed an army officer and caused some material damage, it added.

Since the Gaza war began, Israel has regularly carried out air strikes in Syria, often targeting members of Iran-backed groups. This year, such attacks have killed 171 fighters and 13 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israeli air raid in southern Lebanon kills three

An Israeli air attack in the Lebanese border village of Yaroun has killed three people, reports Lebanon’s an-Nahar news site. It comes as tensions boil between Israel and Hezbollah, which earlier released drone footage of sensitive military sites deep in Israel.

Earlier, Israeli air force jets also targeted military sites in other parts of southern Lebanon, including in the areas of Taybeh, Odaisseh and al-Jebbayn, and Ayta ash Shab.



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SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Hezbollah rocket barrages hit northern Israel

Sirens have sounded in and around the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, where Hezbollah has claimed successive rocket attacks. The Lebanese group said some of the rockets struck the headquarters of Israel’s 769th Eastern Brigade in the city.

The Times of Israel is reporting that the attacks damaged property in several areas but no casualties were reported.


Head of Hezbollah threatens Israel, Cyprus in televised address

The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah has warned that his group would fight with “no rules” and “no ceilings” in case a broader war with Israel erupts, and that nowhere in Israel would be safe from Hezbollah’s attacks.

In a televised address, Nasrallah said that included possible targets in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time, saying Hezbollah could consider it “a part of the war”, if it continued to allow Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises.

Hezbollah’s Nasrallah: Israeli army appears defeated and collapsed

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has spoken in a video address. Here are some of his main points:

  • The storming of the Galilee is a possibility that remains and is likely within any war waged by Israeli forces on Lebanon.
  • The enemy (Israeli forces) fears that things will roll into a war, and this strongly affects the Gaza front and forces it to economise on ammunition.
  • The great pressure from the southern Lebanon front, in addition to other fronts, affects the negotiations regarding the outcome of the war.
  • The enemy’s image of deterrence is collapsing, and the army appears defeated and collapsed.
  • The Israeli enemy is unable to wage war on these fronts, as the British and Americans are taking care of the Yemeni front.
  • The enemy’s Ministry of Defense says there are 8,663 disabled officers and soldiers, and we ask what the number of wounded is.
  • Part of the enemy’s media and psychological war is not acknowledging its dead and losses.
  • The resistance followed a strategy of blinding the enemy and deafening its ears by targeting Israeli technical equipment, radars, balloons, and others.
  • The enemy evacuated many of its military sites on the border with southern Lebanon.
  • We have a very large amount of information, and the drone footage we published on Tuesday is a small part of long hours that were filmed in Haifa.

Nasrallah says nowhere in Israel will be spared if full-blown war breaks out

Nasrallah warns that “no place” in Israel would be spared from Hezbollah’s weapons in case of a full-blown war after Israel said operational plans for a Lebanon offensive had been approved.

“The enemy knows well that we have prepared ourselves for the worst … and that no place … will be spared our rockets,” Nasrallah said in a televised address. Israel must “wait for us on land, by sea and by air”, he said.


‘Always been ready for all-out war’: Hezbollah

Ibrahim Moussawi, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament, says while the group does not want an all-out war with Israel, it is prepared to fight one if it is “imposed” on them.

“Hezbollah has always been ready. It’s been more ready than any time in the past, he told Al Jazeera. “We are under occupation. Parts of our country are still under occupation … we are the target of Israeli violence,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Did the Gazans want what the Israelis do or what they are doing? It’s under the eyes of the international community that is … a complete, full partner in what’s happening.”

Moreover, Moussawi said it was Israel to blame for “escalating” the tensions with Hezbollah. “We are on the defensive. We are doing the role of defending our people,” he added.

Moussavi said while the armed group is on the battlefront, they have been receiving indirect messages regarding ongoing discussions to de-escalate tensions. “We believe that everyone should assume their own responsibility for what’s happening now in Lebanon,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Americans are not taking initiative in escalation. They don’t want a full-fledged war, we know that. But they are continuing to funnel supplies and military ammunition to the Israelis. They can stop it, and the war will stop.”

Israeli defence minister meets with army chief on potential war in Lebanon

Yoav Galant, Israel’s defence minister, has met with the army’s chief of staff for a “situation assessment” of the army’s northern command, reports Israel’s public broadcaster.

“We have an obligation to change the situation in the north and return the citizens safely to their homes and we will find the way to do this action”, Galant said at the meeting.

Last night, Israeli officials approved operational plans for war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying that the country is ready for an “all-out war”.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Home bombed in Gaza City

Israeli forces have bombed a home in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, killing an unknown number of people and trapping others under the rubble, report our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

An Israeli strike also hit the city’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, according to their reports, injuring more Palestinians.

The attacks follow an overnight air attack on another home in Gaza City that killed six people, including women and children.


Israeli attack reported in central Gaza

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Strip reports that Israeli forces blew up residential buildings in az-Zahra, north of Nuseirat refugee camp.


Four killed across Gaza in Israeli attacks

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that two people were killed after they were targeted by an Israeli army drone attack in Gaza City in the northern Strip.

Wafa quoted a medical source at al-Ahli Hospital, who said that the attack took place in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in the southeast of the city.

In another Israeli army attack, this one carried out via artillery shelling, two more Palestinians were killed in the western area of Rafah, near the al-Alam Roundabout, Wafa added.

At least nine killed in Israeli attack on Rafah

Al Jazeera’s correspondent and Reuters news agency report that at least nine people were killed when Israeli bombs struck a group of people near the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) aid crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Our correspondent says that at least 30 were injured in the attack, and our cameras captured the arrival of dozens of wounded at the European Hospital in southern Gaza, which is heavily overcrowded.

Reuters reports, citing medical sources, that the group of people were hit while awaiting the arrival of aid trucks through the crossing.


Israeli attacks across Gaza ongoing

Generally, the security situation across the Gaza Strip is escalating at a very high speed now. Within the past hour, the Israeli military has targeted a group of Palestinians in the eastern portion of Rafah city.

We are surrounded by two Israeli military drones that are flying and hovering at a very low altitude in the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Hospital. People here are fearful that they [Israeli forces] … might attack in the coming hours.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Palestinian girl with burns from Israeli shelling hopes for treatment

The disfiguring facial burns of 10-year-old Hanan Akel show how Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is not only causing thousands of deaths but terrible injuries afflicting both old and young.

Hanan lies in a hospital cot in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, struggling to move her mouth as she speaks with her eyes partly shut, patches of her forehead still raw and stitched scars across her nose and lips.

When her mother Walaa Akel tried to clean her, she wailed.


Hanan Akel, who suffers from burn injuries from an Israeli raid, lies at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza

Hanan was out walking in Bureij refugee camp where the family had taken shelter after leaving their home when she was caught in Israeli shellfire, her mother Walaa told Reuters.

Instead of spending the Eid al-Adha festival playing with friends, she has spent it in the Al-Aqsa Hospital being treated for second- and third-degree burns on her face and limbs. Now she hopes for treatment and for her face to heal. “I want to go back to what I was like before,” she said.

Doctor Mahmoud Mahani, the plastic surgeon treating Hanan at the hospital, said she needs urgent treatment somewhere with more advanced equipment.

Walaa Akel said her daughter used to be “as beautiful as the moon”. Now, Hanan often wants to look at videos and pictures of what her face was like before. “She says to me, ‘Mama, I wish I could walk. Mama, I wish I could stand. I wish I could play with my siblings,'” Walaa said.

Zero supplies in hospital means reusing disposables: Paediatric surgeon

General paediatric surgeon Jamal Mari, who has been working at Al-Ahli Hospital in Deir el-Balah as part of a medical mission from Australia, says he was not allowed to bring any medical supplies into the besieged enclave.

“There are zero supplies. We are just depending on whatever [supplies are] left over from [previous] missions,” he told Al Jazeera from outside the hospital. “Whatever disposables we have, we keep reusing and reusing them, which is not safe at all.”

“They’ve got five rooms [in the hospital] which they say are operating theatres, but honestly they’re just little cubicles re-fashioned and done as theatres,” he said. “I don’t understand how they’re managing.”


Infants suffering from severe burns throughout their bodies: Surgeon in Gaza

Bushra Othman, who also arrived in Gaza as part of a medical mission from Australia, says most of the patients being affected are “exceptionally young kids, women and children”.

“Some of the injuries we saw yesterday [at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah] are shrapnel and blast injuries from explosions, massive chest wounds, esophageal and lung injuries, major abdominal trauma,” she told Al Jazeera.

Othman added that infants as young as 18 months old are being killed in explosions, or have severe burns throughout their bodies.

“None of these patients can go to the intensive care unit to get appropriate treatment because the hospital is understaffed, undersupplied and there’s just not enough to go around in terms of resources,” she said.



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

Israeli attacks raise ‘serious concerns under the laws of war’: UN

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has published a report on “six emblematic attacks” committed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2023 that raises “serious concerns under the laws of war”.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement regarding the UN’s assessment.

Here are some of the findings from the OHCHR report:

  • The UN verified 218 deaths from six Israeli attacks involving the suspected use of GBU-31 (2,0000 lbs; 925kg), GBU-32 (1,000 lbs; 460kg) and GBU-39 (250 lbs; 110kg) bombs from October 9 to December 2 on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.
  • GBU-31, 32 and 39s are mostly used to penetrate through several floors of concrete and can completely collapse tall structures. Given how densely populated the areas targeted were, the use of an explosive weapon with such wide area effects is highly likely to amount to a prohibited indiscriminate attack.
  • Series of Israeli strikes indicate that Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war.
  • In five of the attacks, no warning was issued, raising concerns about violations of the principle of precaution in attack to protect civilians.
  • In three of the strikes, Israeli forces said they targeted individuals connected to the attacks in Israel on October 7-8. But the mere presence of one commander, or several fighters does not turn an entire neighbourhood into a military objective, as this violates the principle of proportionality and the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks.
  • Palestinian armed groups have continued to fire indiscriminate projectiles towards Israel, inconsistent with their obligations under international humanitarian law.


Israeli army ‘one of the most criminal in the world’

Chris Sidoti, a member of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, says the Israeli army is “one of the most criminal armies in the world”.

The COI was presenting findings of its report into abuses committed on both sides since Israel’s war on Gaza began.


‘Brutal’ torture taking place in Israel detention facility: Lawyer

Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh recently visited detained Palestinian journalist Muhammad Arab in Sde Timan prison.

He says detainees there were subjected to “brutal methods of torture beyond imagination”. “No human being can live under those conditions,” he told Al Jazeera. “Israel is making sure to keep them tortured and beaten.”

According to Mahajneh, Arab shared “many details” of his incarceration at the facility, which began more than 100 days ago.

“For example, he’s being handcuffed and blindfolded 24/7 for over 100 days non-stop,” Mahanej revealed. “They are allowed to take a shower for one minute, and everyone who exceeds this will be subjected to torture in a very brutal manner… They are seated all the time. They are not allowed to stand up. They are not allowed to talk to the other prisoners,” he added.

“Are there any free people in the world who would accept such conditions?”



SvennoJ on 19 June 2024

White House denies cancelling meeting over Netanyahu video: Report

A White House official has told The Times of Israel that a planned meeting with Israeli officials has not been canceled, disputing an earlier Axios report that it was axed due to anger over Netanyahu’s video message about delays in US weapons shipments.

“As we said in the briefing yesterday, we have no idea what the [Israeli] prime minister is talking about, but that’s not a reason for rescheduling a meeting,” the White House official told The Times of Israel.

The US is still working to schedule the high-level meeting in Washington to account for the “travel and availability of principals”, the official added. However, details are not finalised “so nothing has been canceled”, they said.

Report: Biden’s feud with Netanyahu hindering Lebanon-Israel peace efforts

US news outlet Axios is reporting that a fight between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the administration of US President Joe Biden is taking a toll on efforts to de-escalate tensions on the Lebanese border and avoid full-scale war between Isreal and Hezbollah.

The report cites three US officials from the Biden administration, who blamed Netanyahu for publically airing his grievances against the US and creating tension. They said that this “erodes” Israel’s power to deter Hezbollah, as it creates a public gap in cohesion between the two allies, Israel and the US

Israeli officials said yesterday that they had approved operational plans to go to war against Hezbollah, even as a US envoy paid visits to Lebanon and Israel to try and ease tensions.

Report: Doubts growing within US government about possibility of ceasefire deal

US news outlet Politico reports, citing four unnamed officials within the administration of US President Joe Biden, that doubts are growing that Israel and Hamas will reach a ceasefire deal under the framework advanced by the US in recent weeks.

As recently as this week, the US said that its position on the Gaza ceasefire is that Hamas is responsible for the delay and that Israel has not just accepted the deal – it produced it.

Israel army spokesman says Hamas can’t be defeated ‘as an ideology’

An Israeli army spokesman has said Hamas cannot be defeated as an ideology, prompting the government to quickly re-assert that it remains committed to the Palestinian group’s destruction.

“Hamas is an ideology; we cannot eliminate an ideology,” Daniel Hagari told Israeli media. “To say that we are going to make Hamas disappear is to throw sand in people’s eyes. If we don’t provide an alternative, in the end, we will have Hamas.”

His comments were quickly rebuffed by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose cabinet has stated its Gaza offensive will not end until Hamas is defeated.

“The political and security cabinet headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu defined as one of the goals of the war the destruction of Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

“The [Israeli army] is of course committed to this.”


Netanyahu is fighting everyone, when will he be sacked. He is the problem.