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

SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

EU’s Borrell ‘dismayed’ after UN reports show no improvement on Gaza aid access

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said that he is “dismayed” by reports from the United Nation’s World Food Programme and the World Health Organization that humanitarian access into the besieged coastal enclave is still hindered.

In a post on X, he added: “In the West Bank an economic collapse is looming and violence intensifying. Blatant disregard for ICJ rulings and UNSCR 2735 continues. No improvement on humanitarian access and delivery.”

He cited several points that point to a deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and regionally, saying yesterday was one of the deadliest days since October with at least 100 Palestinians killed.

“The hostages are still held captive. The risk of a full-blown conflict involving Hezbollah is real. A spill over in Lebanon would seriously impact the region and beyond.”

He urged all parties to stop the “cycle of suffering and destruction”.

About 9,000 cancer patients in Gaza face death: Health Ministry

The ministry has said that this is due to a number of factors, namely the lack of cancer medications in the Gaza Strip, the fact that almost all of the hospitals in the besieged coastal enclave are out of service, and the difficulty to “perform surgeries to remove tumors due to the collapse of the health system”.

It also said that before October 7 last year, there was no radiotherapy or other equipment to diagnose tumors and monitor their development in patients.

The ministry added another factor was “the rapid occurrence of complications, the absence of painkillers, and the severe shortage of food, absence of potable water and water for personal hygiene”.

It pointed out that all crossings into the Gaza Strip are currently closed to Palestinian patients, making it impossible for them to seek medical treatment abroad.

“Cancer patients have no chance in Gaza if the borders are not opened at once. The only two hospitals for cancer patients are Rantisi [now out of service] and the Turkish Friendship Hospital [targeted by Israeli bombardment],” it said.

 

‘The Israeli investigative system is a whitewash’: HRW

While a video showing a wounded Palestinian man being used as a human shield by Israeli forces has garnered attention, it’s only one example of the abuses carried out in the occupied West Bank, a human rights analyst says.

“We’re experiencing an unprecedented escalation of violence,” said Sari Bashi, a Human Rights Watch representative based in the occupied West Bank.

Bashi told Al Jazeera that last year, Israeli troops killed nearly 500 Palestinians, including more than 100 children, during an increased number of violent incursions there. That’s double the figure from 2022.

Accountability is sorely lacking, said Bashi, citing the recent case of a senior Israeli general who hunted down and shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who threw a rock at his vehicle. He was cleared by a military court and later received an honorary university degree.

“A permissive environment on the ground gives impunity to Israeli soldiers,” Bashi said. “The Israeli investigative system is a whitewash because you have senior officials and politicians calling for no restrictions on the abuse of force against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.”

 

Israeli tank fired at family car from metres away: Investigation

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/23/israeli-tank-fired-at-hind-rajab-family-car-from-metres-away-investigation

An Israeli tank fired from a close distance at the family car of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, and a tank shell directly hit the ambulance that was dispatched to help.

In a documentary on civilian killings in the war on Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines provides a detailed reconstruction of the January 2024 incident, compiled in collaboration with the non-profit investigative groups Earshot and Forensic Architecture.


Palestinian girl Hind Rajab

The investigation reveals the Israeli tank was likely just 13 to 23 metres (42 to 75 feet) away when it opened fire on Rajab and her relatives in their car.



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SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

Lebanese official calls on reporters to verify ‘falsity’ of Telegraph article

The UK newspaper Telegraph’s recent article about Hezbollah storing weapons at Beirut’s international airport lacks “credibility”, says Ziad T Makary, Lebanon’s information minister.

“Out of concern for the security of the country and the safety of Lebanese citizens, residents and visitors, and based on the fact that the article contradicts the principles and ethics of journalism, and because its goals are not innocent, we address all media outlets and hope they will not be satisfied with denouncing the article, but rather in exposing its intentions behind its publication in these circumstances.”

Makary urged reporters to come to the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport tomorrow morning to “verify first-hand the falsity of the allegations contained in the Telegraph newspaper”.

Lol the UK Telegraph isn't a newspaper, it's a sensationalist tabloid.

Israeli army says deadly strike on UN facility targeted Palestinian fighters

    The Israeli army released a statement justifying its attack on the UNWRA  shelter and aid distribution centre in northern Gaza, saying that previously its buildings were “a shield for terrorist activities”.

    The Israeli army maintains this was a precise strike that hit Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure, from which the two groups had been operating. It claims that prior to the bombing, “precautionary measures were taken to reduce the risk of harming civilians”.

    Throughout the entirety of this conflict, the Israeli military has targeted not only the facilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), but its employees as well. A total 193 have been killed in Israeli attacks.

    The Israeli army and political apparatus alike have maintained that UNRWA is a “terrorist organisation” and must be replaced in the Gaza Strip.


    Every male 14 years and older is a Palestinian fighter according to the IDF. Although they'll kill and arrest 12 year olds as well.

    Al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’ surrounded by Israeli tanks

    Residents say Israeli tanks advanced to the edge of the al-Mawasi displaced persons’ camp – deemed a “safe zone” by Israel’s army – in the northwest of Rafah city.

    On Friday, Israeli forces launched an assault on a tent camp in al-Mawasi near the International Committee of the Red Cross base, killing at least 25 people and wounding 50 others.

    Witnesses said Israeli troops fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents after the first attack.

    Israeli forces ordered Palestinians in southern Gaza to flee to al-Mawasi in May, telling residents it was the only “safe area” after it launched its much-condemned invasion of Rafah.

    Last edited by SvennoJ - on 23 June 2024

    SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

    Netanyahu says intense fighting coming to an end, Gaza war to continue

    The Israeli prime minister says the phase of intense fighting against Hamas is coming to a close, but the war will not stop until the group no longer controls the Gaza Strip.

    Once heavy battles are over in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu said, it will allow Israel to deploy more forces to the front with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    “After the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this. First and foremost for defensive purposes. And secondly, to bring our [evacuated] residents home,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

    “If we can we will do this diplomatically. If not, we will do it another way. But we will bring [the residents] home.”

    In other words, bombing will continue by drones, planes, boats. War by remote control. Blockade will continue. Let starvation, disease outbreaks and lack of healthcare do the rest.

    What if Israel’s plan was no ‘day after’ for Gaza all along?

    Just like the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel has entered a war in Gaza with vague and overambitious aims.

    But what US officials may not care to admit is that Israel is not thinking about an end to the military phase, and a beginning of a civilian reconstruction plan, argues Nathan Brown, professor of international relations and political science at George Washington University.

    Brown says Israel has purposely designed the carnage in Gaza to be a “forever war” – not something that will ever be resolved, especially with a “blank cheque” from the US.

     

    Two more children die from malnutrition in northern Gaza

    In Beit Lahiya, health officials at Kamal Adwan Hospital say two babies died of malnutrition.

    Infant deaths from malnutrition or dehydration now number at least 31 since October 7, 2023, a figure health officials say reflects under-reporting.

    The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said last week that more than 50,000 children in the Gaza Strip require immediate medical treatment for acute malnutrition.

    “With continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger,” UNRWA said.



    SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

    Israel offensive in Lebanon risks broader war: US general

    An Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon increases the risk of a wider regional conflict that draws in Iran, especially if Hezbollah’s existence is threatened.

    That’s the view of the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Brown.

    “Hezbollah is more capable than Hamas as far as overall capability, number [of] rockets and the like. And I would just say, I would see Iran be more inclined to provide greater support to Hezbollah,” Air Force General  Brown told reporters.

    “Again, all this could help to broaden the conflict in the region and really have Israel not only be worried about what’s happening on their southern part of the country, but also now what’s happening in the north.”

     

    US: Proximity of Lebanon to Israel makes it ‘harder for us to support them’

    The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff says it will be difficult to protect Israel if a war breaks out with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

    Air Force General CQ Brown’s remarks came as Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant arrived in Washington, DC, to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war and escalating hostilities on Israel’s northern border.

    He noted that the US could be more limited in its ability to defend Israel from attacks by Hezbollah than it was in helping intercept Iran’s April missile-and-drone attack on Israel, which was largely thwarted.

    “From our perspective, based on where our forces are, the short-range between Lebanon and Israel, it’s harder for us to be able to support them in the same way we did back in April,” Brown said.

    Israeli PM Netanyahu seeks ‘forever war’ in Gaza, Lebanon

    Israel pulling back from its offensive in Rafah will allow it to send ground troops to the Lebanese border, which will prolong the war and ensure Netanyahu’s survival, an analyst says.

    “What we’re not seeing is the likelihood of this war ending with an Israeli initiative anytime soon, because Netanyahu’s political survival – his get out of jail card, if you will – depends on a war continuing forever,” Phyliss Bennis, an analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Al Jazeera.

    And war continuing is a very likely scenario, she added.

    “There’s also not much public opposition to continuing the war and escalating the war on the Lebanese border in the north. So the possibility of war continuing seems to be very much still under way until there is serious, significant pressure from the United States in the form of cutting off the money and the weapons that are enabling this genocide to continue.”


    USA caught lying again. There was never any lasting ceasefire deal on the table. USA lied to the UNSC as well, only Russia saw right through it at the UNSC. (Takes a habitual liar to detect one...)

    Netanyahu: War will continue even if ceasefire deal agreed with Hamas

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/23/netanyahu-says-war-will-continue-even-if-deal-agreed-with-hamas

    Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has indicated he is open to a “partial” agreement that would facilitate the return of some captives held in Gaza.

    He reiterated, however, that he would not agree to any deal that stipulated an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, despite previous claims by the United States that an Israeli proposal would be a pathway to finishing the conflict “permanently”.

    “The goal is to return the kidnapped and uproot the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israeli media outlet Channel 14.



    SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

    Netanyahu’s comments on ‘partial agreement’ shows he rejects Biden proposal: Hamas

    Hamas has issued a statement describing recent remarks from Benjamin Netanyahu as showing that the Israeli prime minister only wants a “partial agreement after which the war would resume” and not the proposal the Biden administration “tried to market”.

    “Our insistence that any agreement include a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal was necessary to block Netanyahu’s path,” the Hamas statement added.

    Netanyahu made the comments in a televised interview with Israeli media outlet Channel 14 on Sunday, where he also said that Israeli troops would be moved to Israel’s border with southern Lebanon as “the war in its intense phase is about to end in Rafah”.

    Israeli forces arrest child, fire tear gas in West Bank raids

    Israeli soldiers arrested a 12-year old boy during a raid on his family home in Beit Ummar, north of the city of Hebron, shortly after midnight, the Wafa news agency reported.

    In the nearby Al-Arroub camp, an Israeli raid triggered confrontations and Israeli forces deployed tear gas, causing a number of people to choke, the agency added.



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    SvennoJ on 23 June 2024

    Biden, Blinken and Kirby owe apology to Palestinians after viral Jenin video | Janta Ka Reporter

    This Won't End Well For Israel



    SvennoJ on 24 June 2024

    Israeli attack kills senior health official in Gaza

    The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli shelling of the Daraj clinic in Gaza City killed the enclave’s Director of Ambulances and Emergency Hani al-Jaafarawi.

    The ministry said it was determined to continue its medical humanitarian duty despite Israel’s systematic targeting of health workers and once again called on the international community to stop the “Israeli aggression”.

    Translation: The Ministry of Health in Gaza mourns its martyr, Hani al-Jaafarawi, director of ambulance and emergency in Gaza, who [was killed] in the Israeli occupation’s targeting of the Daraj Clinic in Gaza.

    Funeral for Gaza’s ambulance and emergency services chief

    An Israeli air strike at a medical clinic in Gaza City killed the director of Gaza’s Ambulance and Emergency Department, the enclave’s Health Ministry said.

    The ministry said the killing of Hani al-Jaafarawi brought the number of medical staff killed by Israeli fire since October 7 to 500. At least 300 others have been detained so far.


    Israel removed ‘pillar’ from Gaza’s health system by killing Hani al-Jaafarawi

    Eyad Zaqout, director of emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, has told Al Jazeera that by killing al-Jaafarawi, Israel removed “a pillar” from the enclave’s collapsing health system.

    “It is clear that the Israeli forces are trying once again to destroy the health and medical system in Gaza completely,” Zaqout said.

    “Mr Hani al-Jaafarawi was a pillar for Gaza’s health system. He was working hard for serving the sick and the wounded people. He was serving day and night to serve those who are living in very difficult circumstances in Gaza,” he added.


    Two Jordanian soldiers killed while transporting aid to Gaza

    The Jordanian military has announced the death of two soldiers following a crash involving three trucks transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

    A military source told Jordanian national television that the deaths occurred in an accident involving three military trucks on Sunday “as a result of [the convoy] deviating from its route on the Dead Sea/Al-Adassiya road”.

    The two soldiers killed were identified as Imad Atta Arif Al-Aram and Yahya Othman Yahya Al-Sayyah.


    Palestinian clans in Gaza reject Netanyahu’s comments

    A representative for Palestinian clans in the Gaza Strip has said that the groups “refuse to be a substitute for any Palestinian political party ruling” the enclave, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

    The statement came after Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 that he wants to “create a civilian administration, if possible with local Palestinians” and regional backing “to manage humanitarian supply and later on civilian affairs in the Strip”.

    The representative for the clans said the groups will fail Netanyahu’s plans and that only the Palestinian people have the mandate to choose those who will govern the Gaza Strip.

    Gaza has large traditional family clans, affiliated with political factions including Hamas and Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Last edited by SvennoJ - on 24 June 2024

    SvennoJ on 24 June 2024

    Residents of Kibbutz Be’eri say won’t return until ‘crisis of trust’ resolved

    Gili Molcho, the secretary of Kibbutz Be’eri, has told Israeli army radio that residents of the community are unlikely to return to their homes near the Gaza border until a “crisis of trust” in the Israeli military is resolved.

    “I would say that trust in the state should also be restored, but it will be more difficult,” Molcho said. Kibbutz Be’eri was among the Israeli border communities significantly affected by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

    The Israeli government recently announced it was extending the government-funded hotel stays of 27,000 Israelis displaced from near Israel’s borders with Gaza and Lebanon until August 15.

    They shouldn't return at all. The Kibbutz were formed in the 50s as human shields to dam in Gaza.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2014/08/06/how-israel-uses-its-own-civilians-as-human-shields-while-assaulting-gaza/

    Up to 21,000 children missing in chaos of Gaza war, says aid group

    Save the Children, in a new statement, said thousands of missing Palestinian children are believed to be trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed homes, detained by Israeli forces, buried in unmarked graves or lost from their families.

    “It is nearly impossible to collect and verify information under the current conditions in Gaza,” the British aid group said, “but at least 17,000 children are believed to be unaccompanied and separated and approximately 4,000 children are likely missing under the rubble, with an unknown number also in mass graves”.

    The group added, “Others have been forcibly disappeared, including an unknown number detained and forcibly transferred out of Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their families amidst reports of ill-treatment and torture.”


    Save the Children calls for investigation into Gaza’s missing children

    Jeremy Stoner, the group’s regional director for the Middle East, is calling for an independent investigation and accountability.

    “Families are tortured by the uncertainty of the whereabouts of their loved ones. No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try and find their child’s body. No child should be alone, unprotected in a war zone. No child should be detained or held hostage,” he said.

    “Children who are missing but living are vulnerable, face grave protection risks and must be found. They must be protected and reunited with their families. For the children who have been killed, their deaths must be formally marked, their families informed, burial rites respected, and accountability sought. As many have pointed out, Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown. There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable. We desperately need a ceasefire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed.”


    ‘It is a war against children’

    Khaled Quzmar, the general director of the child rights organisation Defense for Children International Palestine, has said the atrocities committed against children in Gaza are unprecedented.

    “We are working in this field for more than 30 years, but what we are witnessing [in Gaza] is at a level that we did not see during the second world war,” he said. “It is a war against children. Children in Gaza are the big cost of the Israeli genocide in Gaza,” Quzmar said.

    “Children are also subjected to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he stressed, adding: “The fundamental rights of the children in Gaza are violated systematically and continuously by the Israeli army.”

    Here’s what aid groups have said on ‘Israel’s war on children’

    Nearly half of the more than 37,000 Palestinians Israel has killed in Gaza since October 7 were children.

    Earlier this month, the UN added Israel to its “blacklist” of countries harming children in conflict.

    On Monday, UK-based Save the Children called for an investigation into Gaza’s missing children, saying that 21,000 children were estimated to be lost, disappeared, detained, buried under the rubble or in mass graves as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza.

    Here is what aid groups have said about the plight of children in Gaza:

    • The UN called Gaza a graveyard for children in November.
    • UNICEF said in May there is no safe place for children in Gaza. In June, UNICEF said about 90 percent of children in Gaza lacked nutrition and faced “severe” threats to their “survival, growth and development”.
    • In June, the UN chief said he was “shocked by the unprecedented number of children killed and maimed by the Israeli army and security forces in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem”.
    • A UN report published in June verified “8,009 grave violations against 4,360 children” in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
    • The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said more than 50,000 children in Gaza require immediate medical treatment for acute malnutrition.
    • More than 8,000 youngsters have been diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition, including 1,600 children with the most dangerous form of the condition, the WHO said in June. At least 31 children have died so far due to malnutrition amid Israeli restrictions on aid supplies.
    Last edited by SvennoJ - on 24 June 2024

    SvennoJ on 24 June 2024

    About 65 percent of Gaza’s roads damaged: UN agency

    The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) says about 65 percent of Gaza’s roads have been damaged.

    Approximately 1,100km (683.5 miles) of roads have been destroyed, 350km (217.5 miles) severely affected and 1,470km (913.5 miles) of roads have been moderately affected, according to satellite imagery analysis by UNOSAT.

    The satellite images were collected on May 29, the agency said.

    Israel’s military operations would change ‘tactically, but not strategically’

    The Israeli military operations would change “tactically, but absolutely not strategically”, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi says following Netanyahu’s remarks that “intense fighting in Gaza is nearly over”.

    “Today the army is everywhere in the Strip, the fact that the prime minister said that in two weeks the intensity will decrease does not mean that we will stop the fighting, but the operations will change tactically, but absolutely not strategically.”

    At least 37,626 killed in Gaza in Israeli strikes since October 7: Ministry

    At least 37,626 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 in the wake of deadly Hamas attack inside Israel, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

    The ministry added that another 86,098 people have been wounded in more than eight months of relentless Israeli attacks.


    Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics carry into an ambulance the rescued body of a man who was killed during bombardment in the area of Shakoush northwest of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip



    SvennoJ on 24 June 2024

    Israeli forces raid Tulkarem, arrest young man

    Israeli forces have raided several homes in Bal’a, near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, and arrested a young Palestinian man, the Wafa news agency reports.

    At least 21 other Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces in other raids across the occupied West Bank, including a 12-year-old boy.


    Israeli forces carry out mass arrests, detain Palestinian legislator

    Israeli forces have carried out raids across the West Bank, arresting at least 40 Palestinian men and boys near Ramallah and prominent Palestinian legislator Azzam Salhab from his home in Hebron.


    The arrest of Salhab, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, comes just days after he was released from months of administrative detention in Israel, according to Palestinian media.



    Israeli forces have arrested 9,360 Palestinians in West Bank since October 7

    The army detained 12 people in the occupied West Bank since last night, including a woman and children, according to a joint statement by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

    Raids were carried out in parts of Ramallah targeting at least 80 citizens, the statement said, adding that the majority of them were briefly detained without confirming the number of people remaining in custody from the operation in question.

    The latest detentions take the total number of Palestinians in Israeli custody since October 7 to 9,360.


    Israeli forces detained 30 youngsters in village near Ramallah: Mayor

    Mayor Rafat Khalifeh, the head of the municipal council in the occupied West Bank village of Kafr Nime near Ramallah, has told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces detained more than 30 young men, some as young as 15, yesterday in a village park “for whatever reason that is not clear”.

    The high school students are expected to sit their exams in two days, he said, fearing that the development will affect the educational prospects of the village youngsters.

    “People are intimidated very much,” he said, adding that the village has “suffered a lot” since the outbreak of the Gaza war as Israeli raids have become more frequent. He also said the Israelis created illegal settlements near his village and the settlers were intimidating the Kafr Nime residents.


    Israeli forces escalating arrest campaigns against children: Prisoners’ group

    The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said in a statement on Telegram that the Israeli forces are escalating arrest campaigns against Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank since the eruption of Israel’s war on Gaza.

    It said at least seven children, including two brothers, were arrested in the past 24 hours in the West Bank and Israel’s military court extended the detention of three children from the town of Beit Ummar near the city of Hebron.