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

SvennoJ on 09 February 2024

Israeli parliament speaker cancels meeting with UN chief after statement calling for ceasefire

The speaker of the Israeli parliament on Friday canceled a meeting scheduled with Secretary-General António Guterres because of the UN leader's call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.

"I intended to try and convince, as well as hand [the UN Secretary General] a book we prepared in the Knesset, documenting [October 7] with still images," Amir Ohana said in a statement. "But yesterday he again called on the State of Israel to stop fighting, criticizing it 'even if Hamas uses human shields.'"

Guterres said Thursday the level of destruction and number of people killed in Gaza show that “there is something wrong in the way the military operations are being conducted.”

Responding to a reporter who said Hamas is hiding within the civilian population, Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the use of human shields, adding that the protection of civilians is a must even in those circumstances. “I even said [the use of human shields is] a violation of international humanitarian law, but the same humanitarian international law is clear that even when there are human shields, there is an obligation to protect civilians,” he said. “In that regard, I think we are abiding by principle without double standards.”

In a news conference held after Ohana's statement, Guterres' spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters the secretary general's office knew about the cancelation first through the media before receiving an official notification, adding that Guterres' statement on Thursday was not new.

Still using October 7 to justify genocide.

Also don't the IDF soldiers have family and go back home, 'hiding within the civilian population'. It's just a non statement at this point.



Actually it's a legal cover to commit war crimes. This goes into quite a lot of detail with examples
https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/israel-human-rights-committees-report-beit-hanoun#para_34

however this sums it up quite well and explains the (last minute) evacuation orders, part of the legal cover
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/13/what-is-a-human-shield-and-why-is-israel-using-the-term-in-gaza

What are human shields?

Under international law, the term refers to civilians or other protected persons whose presence is used to render military targets immune from military operations. The use of human shields is forbidden by Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime as well as a violation of humanitarian law.

There are three kinds of human shields: Voluntary shields are people who willfully choose to stand in front of a legitimate target as a means of protection; Involuntary shields are people who are coercively deployed as bargaining chips or as a means to thwart an attack; and proximate shields are civilians or civilian sites that become shields or are cast as shields due to their proximity to the fighting.

After Israel instructed 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south, the family of Al Jazeera correspondent Youmna ElSayed received a phone call from the Israeli army warning them to immediately leave their home in Gaza City. They decided it was too risky to make the journey south amid the heavy bombardment.

Neve Gordon, co-author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, told Al Jazeera that evacuation orders give the warring party that issued it – in this case Israel – the ability to cast families like ElSayed’s and the entire population of northern Gaza as proximate human shields.

“Temporally, proximate shielding can endure far longer than either voluntary or involuntary shielding, because the latter two are restricted to the time during which the civilian acts or is forced into acting as a shield,” Gordon said. By contrast, proximate shields exist as long as the fighting continues.

Israel also claimed that Hamas prevented civilians from leaving northern Gaza, using them as involuntary shields, and that others had willfully stayed behind and would therefore be considered “an accomplice in a terrorist organisation”, according to mobile phone audio messages and air-dropped leaflets. Israel provided no proof that Hamas forced people to stay.

What are the implications of labelling civilians as human shields?

This label can be used by a warring party to “relax the repertoire of violence that is permitted to be used in that area”, said Gordon, who teaches international law at Queen Mary University of London.

The presence of human shields does not render a site immune from attack. While they are protected people according to the laws of war, the military assets they shield can still be legitimately targeted. If they die, the responsibility for their death is placed on those who use them as human shields, rather than on those who kill them. Therefore, “in an area where there are only human shields and combatants, more lethal violence can be used”, Gordon said.

The limits are drawn by the principles of distinction and proportionality: An army has the duty to target only the enemy, even if this means facing greater risks to minimise civilian casualties; and to weigh the military value of each attack against the civilian casualties that are likely to result from it.

Non-combatant civilians even if used as human shields are entitled to protection, experts say.

Marc Weller, chair of international law and international constitutional studies at the University of Cambridge, said that if 1,000 people were sheltering at a site that was proven to hide a Hamas presence, Israel would have to send soldiers in to only hit the enemy assets (principle of distinction). If it instead opted to bomb the compound from the air, it must be able to prove the existence of enemy assets and to argue that the “incidental” loss of life was proportionate to the military advantage gained (principle of proportionality).

Issuing an evacuation order to 1.1 million people and then considering an entire population as a legitimate target also contravenes the same principles. “Knocking on a building [to ask its residents to evacuate] may be reasonable, but telling a million people that they all have to get out because you are bombing everything is unreasonable,” the Cambridge professor told Al Jazeera.

“Israel cannot discharge its obligation of distinction by wishing the civilians away. This places the burden of protection on victims, rather than attackers.


Israel is playing a sick twisted games with loopholes in international laws. They have said often enough they have military lawyers embedded in the army to justify their 'collateral damage'.

“The law says hospitals are protected but immediately adds a series of exceptions where it is allowed to bomb hospitals,” Gordon said. “Israel knows what these exceptions are and frames the hospital as being a site where those exceptions apply.”

Gordon and co-author Nicola Perugini coined the phrase “medical lawfare” to describe “the idea of framing hospitals as carrying out a mission that is outside their humanitarian duty to justify strikes against them”. This is a strategy “repeatedly deployed by the Israeli military and government to legitimise attacks on life-sustaining and saving infrastructure and shift the blame onto the Palestinians themselves,” Gordon said.


“The very fact that we have seen 44 [Israeli] soldiers killed in this conflict and almost 11,000 [Palestinian] civilians gives an indication that the calculation of proportionality in Gaza has left the bounds of reasonableness.”

That was early November...

Doesn't surprise me lawyers are behind this, unethical scum of the earth. And with the Western media simply regurgitating everything the IDF claims as true, giving them the benefit of the doubt every single time, they're just as complicit in genocide.



Around the Network
SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

Mass evacuation in Rafah would have "catastrophic consequences," human rights organization warns

Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned about the repercussions of forcibly evacuating displaced Palestinians in Rafah as Israel plans a military escalation in the southern Gaza city. “Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences," HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher Nadia Hardman said. "There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. The international community should take action to prevent further atrocities.”

HRW said the Israeli military has a responsibility to protect civilians whether they evacuate or not. "Civilians who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international humanitarian law," HRW said. "Many civilians may be unable to heed a warning to evacuate for reasons of health, disability, fear, or lack of any place else to go."

HRW's statement comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the Israeli forces to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah, adding the Israeli military would “soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion.” 


Even our minister of foreign affairs is finally making a statement

Canada warns Israel of ‘devastating impact’ of planned offensive in Rafah

In a rare rebuke to Israel, Canada’s foreign minister has warned that its planned offensive in Rafah would be devastating for innocent people.

“We are deeply concerned by reports of an Israeli military operation in Rafah. It would have devastating impact, putting the lives of Palestinians and foreign nationals, including [Canadians], seeking refuge in grave danger and making the vital delivery of humanitarian aid dangerous,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement on X. “We continue our call for the protection of civilians, for the release of hostages, for urgent efforts toward a sustainable ceasefire and for increased humanitarian aid.”

Former US president’s non-profit joins calls for Israel to abort Rafah assault

Former US President Jimmy Carter’s non-profit has joined the chorus of voices calling on Israel to abandon its plans to launch a ground offensive in Rafah. The Carter Center said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for the military to prepare to evacuate civilians ahead of a military offensive in Rafah was “alarming” given that an estimated 1.3 million Palestinians are residing in overcrowded conditions in the previously designated safe zone.

“The Israeli government’s directive further undermines prospects for long-term peace and its citizens’ security and prosperity,” the non-profit said in a statement. “Ordering this new wave of displacement of Palestinians will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing 126-day siege causing over 25,000 deaths, including some 12,000 children.”

‘You cannot have a war in a refugee camp,’ NGO director says as Rafah assault looms

Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has warned that Israel’s planned ground offensive on Rafah will be taking place in the world’s largest refugee camp. “Rafah has now become the largest refugee camp on earth. One million people fled here because it was supposed to be safe. They’ve joined the population which is there already,” Egeland said in an interview with the BBC.

“It’s the most crowded, it’s the largest refugee camp on earth, and you cannot have a war in a refugee camp.”

UN aid chief says people in Rafah endure ‘unthinkable suffering’

UN humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths also asked where the “well over 1 million people” now in Rafah are “supposed to go”, as the Israeli army readies for a ground invasion and what many believe will be a new blood bath in Gaza.

“Their homes have been destroyed, their streets mined, their neighbourhoods shelled,” Griffith said on social media.
“They’ve been on the move for months, braving bombs, disease and hunger,” he said.
“How are they supposed to stay safe?”
“There’s nowhere left to go in Gaza.”

People in Gaza fear ‘what’s coming’: UN human rights office

Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN’s human rights office (OHCHR) in the occupied Palestinian territory, says the situation in Gaza is “one of the biggest human rights crises” in the world. “We see people in hospitals… desperate for medicines, medical attention. These places have been attacked. There are very few hospitals that are functioning,” Sunghay said in a video interview released by UN Human Rights.

“There are no proper shelters” as well as a scarcity of tents for the displaced, he says. "I think for the civilians, waking up in the morning and trying to feed, just one meal a day for the family, is the biggest challenge. And, really being alive because every time I ask a person how he or she is doing, all that they say [is] we’re just grateful that we are alive,” he adds. “But they are extremely worried about what’s coming.”

UN chief warns of int’l law violation if civilians forcefully displaced from Rafah

The UN secretary general has also expressed concern about what is going to happen to civilians if this ground incursion of Rafah happens. He has echoed the Arab Group’s concerns and noted, as they have, that the forced displacement of civilians is illegal under international law. This is something that has actually been stated in two UN Security Council resolutions already dealing with the situation in Gaza and calling for an increase in humanitarian aid.

[The resolution] explicitly makes the point that forced displacement is illegal under international law. So this is what we are hearing reiterated not only by the Arab Group but UN officials as they worry about attempts to evacuate so many people from Rafah. [Some]1.4 million people are there now – many of them living in the very streets that would need to be utilised to get them out of the area and out of harm’s way.

Arab Group meets at UN amid alarm over planned Israeli attack on Rafah

This was an emergency meeting of the Arab Group. A show of solidarity and an attempt to redouble their efforts and discuss strategy towards getting the UN Security Council to declare an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for Gaza. They are really concerned about the impending invasion of Rafah.

After [the] meeting, they said they were also going to be meeting with the deputy ambassador of Guyana, which now holds the presidency of the Security Council, in an attempt to redouble their efforts to get a ceasefire resolution before the Security Council. The United States has been the stumbling block towards getting that through the Council so far. They say that they are also pushing to meet with the US ambassador to again make the case that an immediate humanitarian ceasefire is necessary to prevent a huge catastrophe from happening.

What is the White House concerned about?

White House downplays Biden’s criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza

The White House has sought to downplay strong criticism levelled at Israel by President Joe Biden and a senior national security official. Biden on Thursday described Israel’s war in Gaza as “over the top” and said innocent people’s suffering has “got to stop”. Jon Finer, Biden’s deputy principal national security adviser, also expressed a “lack of confidence” in Netanyahu’s government during a meeting with Arab American community leaders, The New York Times reported.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement to the Associated Press on Friday that Biden has stressed the need for Israel to protect civilians since the start of the war and that Finer was speaking specifically about Netanyahu’s long-held opposition to a two-state solution for Palestine.

Does Biden have any real power, or is this just a spiel. Biden covering himself while the White House re-assures Israel Biden is just covering himself...

Israel providing assurances it will follow memo on international law, White House says

The White House says it has briefed Israel on a memorandum laying out standards that governments receiving US weapons should follow to uphold international law and received assurances from the Israeli side. “They reiterated their willingness to provide these types of assurances,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a reporter’s question on Friday.

“There are no new standards in this memo. We are not imposing new standards for military aid,” Jean-Pierre added. “Instead, we are spelling publicly the existing standards by the international law including the law of armed conflict.” US President Joe Biden on Thursday issued the memo amid growing concerns among Democrats over the civilian death toll of Israel’s war in Gaza, which Palestinian authorities say has killed more than 28,000 people so far.


As I showed in the previous post, Israel think simply ordering people to evacuate makes anyone left behind a Human Shield and in their eyes a valid target.

Is the international community going to prevent the looming escalation of what's already the worst humanitarian disaster this century, or are they all just covering themselves from complicity in genocide. Actually not preventing genocide is a breach of the Geneva conventions. "Obligation to prevent genocide (Article I) which, according to the ICJ, has an extraterritorial scope;"



SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

Saudi Arabia warns Israel of "very serious repercussions" for storming Rafah

Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry warned Saturday of "very serious repercussions of storming and targeting" the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. "The Kingdom affirms its categorical rejection and strong condemnation of their forcible deportation, and renews its demand for an immediate ceasefire," the ministry said in a statement.

Call for UN meeting: The Saudi ministry said targeting Rafah amounts to a violation of international law and "confirms the need for an urgent convening of the UN Security Council to prevent Israel from causing an imminent humanitarian disaster."

Netanyahu says IDF operation in Rafah must be completed by the start of Ramadan on March 10

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the War Cabinet on Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah must be complete by the start of Ramadan on March 10, an Israeli official told CNN on Saturday. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Friday that the Israeli prime minister had directed the military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah. Netanyahu also said on Thursday that the IDF would “soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion."

Israeli airstrikes and shelling kill at least 25, including 5 police officers in Rafah, Palestinian police say

Israeli airstrikes and shelling targeting the southern Gazan city of Rafah resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa on Saturday. According to medical officials cited by Wafa, 25 people, mainly women and children, were killed as a result of airstrikes and artillery shelling on homes in central and northern Rafah.


Men walk along a street ravaged by Israeli bombing in Rafah, Gaza, on February 9

Palestinian police say at least five officers were killed Saturday in separate Israeli airstrikes that struck Rafah, the southern Gaza city where an Israeli ground offensive is looming. The reports come as Israel claims to have killed three Hamas militants, including two senior military operatives, in the city Saturday.

Hospital reports civilian casualties: Another Israeli airstrike in Rafah hit a house and killed at least 12 civilians, according to information provided to CNN by the Abu Yousuf Al-Najjar hospital in Gaza. More people are believed to still be caught under the rubble. It is unknown if Israel’s reports on the Hamas operatives’ deaths are linked to those coming from Palestinian police and hospital officials.

When asked by CNN for further details about reported strikes in Rafah, an IDF spokesperson said, "In response to Hamas' barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities. "In stark contrast to Hamas' intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm," the spokesperson added.

Last bit added by the IDF censor.


Israel up to the same old tricks, does anyone believe them anymore... Continued smear campaign of UNWRA.

Israel claims it uncovered a Hamas tunnel beneath UN agency's Gaza headquarters

Israel claimed Saturday it uncovered a major Hamas tunnel hiding weapons underneath a United Nations aid agency headquarters in northern Gaza. The alleged finding took place as part of an Israeli military operation in the areas of Shati and Tel al-Hawa in northern Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The IDF claimed in a statement its troops reached a tunnel shaft located near a school operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). It did not say, however, when the discovery was made.

CNN has not independently verified Israel’s claims.

UNRWA head issued a quick response: The organization's commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said the agency did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza and that “Israeli authorities have not informed UNRWA officially about the alleged tunnel,” so they are unable to address the claim further.

The UN agency carries out inspections inside its premises every quarter, and the last one that took place in its Gaza premises was completed in September, according to Lazzarini. Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for Lazzarini to resign after the latest claims of a tunnel beneath UNRWA headquarters Saturday. Lazzarini did not immediately respond.



Gaza residents describe "total destruction" and desperate conditions after Israeli operations in the north


The Tal El Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City is pictured on February 10

Israeli operations in northern Gaza left “total destruction,” according to residents in the Tal El Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, with some saying they have had to drink from toilets due to a lack of water.

Abdul Kareem Al-Qaseer has been displaced for two months from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza to the “industrial area” southeast of Gaza City, where some industrial factories are located, he told a local journalist working for CNN on Saturday. Al-Qaseer said the Israel Defense Forces "hit the whole area, (resulting in) a large number of martyrs and wounded people" where he was sheltering. “We were besieged. We tried to go back to the north, but we were besieged here," he said. "Every day there were martyrs. Every day there was shelling. Every day there was hunger."

"We even had to drink water from the toilets. We had to drink from it and make our children drink from it. There was no food, no drink,” Al-Qaseer added.

Olfat Hamdan said she had witnessed bodies lying in the streets of Gaza City, noting that "nobody was able to drag them or move them." “What have I seen? Total destruction — look at of the scale of the destruction,” she said in a video commissioned by CNN, as she pointed to damaged buildings and rubble around her. 

Another Gaza City resident, Main Naim, also said he had seen dead bodies on the streets, describing some as having been there for 10 days. “Nobody is able to move them,” he said. “They destroyed these areas, as you can see yourself,” he added, pointing to rubble in the video. 

Fighting has continued sporadically in northern Gaza. Earlier this month, the IDF reported further operations in the northern Gaza Strip, where it said "IDF troops are continuing to enter Hamas military compounds and eliminate terrorists." 

 

Unimaginable devastation seen inside Khan Younis, the southern Gaza city once a safe haven for the displaced


Palestinians with a donkey cart outside destroyed residential buildings in Khan Younis, Gaza, on February 3

Scattered around a huge crater are the remnants of a life that is gone. Random pieces of clothing and a red makeup bag lie in the mud. Nearby, an English language textbook, bits of broken furniture and a pillow with floral embroidery are jumbled together in one large pile. The crater sits right in the middle of a residential neighborhood in central Khan Younis, the besieged city in southern Gaza that is the current epicenter of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The city is the hometown of Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a major Hamas stronghold. It’s also an area to which the Israeli military urged large numbers of civilians to flee in the early days of the war. Looking around, it’s clear that the IDF went into Khan Younis with full force.

According to the IDF, the crater is all that is left of a building similar to the others in the area. The military said it was flattened because it sat on top of an entrance to a vast underground tunnel complex. The IDF says the complex has been used by Sinwar and other Hamas officials to hide since the war began and some of the hostages kidnapped from Israel by Hamas on October 7 were held there.

5-year-old Palestinian girl found dead after being trapped in car under Israeli fire

Hind Rajab, the 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car with her dead relatives after it came under Israeli fire in Gaza last month has been found dead. “The child and everyone in the car were found killed by the Israeli Army near the Fares petrol station in the Tal Al-Hawa area, southwest of Gaza City,” said Khader Al Za’anoun, a Palestinian journalist working for CNN who spoke to the child’s grandfather.

On January 29, Hind had been traveling in a car with her uncle, his wife and their four children, fleeing fighting in northern Gaza, when they came under Israeli fire, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Hind’s cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh, made a desperate call for help to emergency services that was recorded by the PRCS and shared on social media. Audio of gunshots heard during the call revealed that Hamadeh was killed while making the call.

Two PRCS ambulance staff dispatched to find her also died, the organization said. Soon after the incident, CNN gave the Israeli military details about the incident, including coordinates provided by the Palestine Red Crescent Society. In response, the Israel Defense Forces said it was “unfamiliar with the incident described.”

When contacted again by CNN, the IDF said they were “still looking into it.”



SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

Nablus is being raided by Israeli forces

Video verified by Al Jazeera shows that a raid has begun on the Alawite cooperation area in the occupied West Bank city. The video shows Israeli army vehicles in the streets of the city.

Earlier, we reported on a raid taking place in Hebron, also in the occupied West Bank. These raids by Israeli security forces are a daily occurrence there, often leading to vandalism of Palestinian homes and businesses, clashes between soldiers and residents, injuries, arrests and even deaths.

Israelis forces raid town in Qalqilya

Members of Israeli security forces arrest a demonstrator in the occupied West Bank

Our colleagues are reporting that Israeli soldiers have stormed the occupied West Bank town of Azzun. Earlier, Israeli forces also raided the al-Dhahr area in the town of Beit Ummar in Hebron. More than 6,900 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank since the war on Gaza began on October 7.

Police in Tel Aviv break up anti-Netanyahu protests

Israeli media outlets are reporting that police took action against the demonstrators, who number in the thousands, after they tried to block Kaplan Street in central Tel Aviv. The protesters are demanding elections and showing their anger at the Israeli prime minister for his failure to bring captives still held in Gaza home. Reports say that these protests are occurring at dozens of other locations throughout Israel’s capital.

Protesters in Haifa, Israel demand new elections

Video posted on X by an Israeli journalist shows “thousands” in the streets of the Israeli city, marching to demand that new elections be held and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu be replaced. Demonstrators carried banners criticizing Netanyahu with slogans saying “Elections now”.



SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

Hind Rajab’s death shows defencelessness of Palestinians in Gaza

Political commentator Nour Odeh says the deaths of Hind Rajab and two paramedics are evidence of how “brutal” the continuing war is.

Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who had been missing for 12 days after an Israeli tank targeted her family’s car in Gaza, was found along with the bodies of two medics dispatched to look for them. “It brings into very sharp focus … how defenceless these civilians are, and how impossible the work of paramedics and first responders, and doctors is,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We’ve seen the killing of dozens of paramedics, first responders, and doctors over the past four months,” she added. “Some of them were shot inside hospital compounds, in addition to patients.” Odeh said Rajab’s death should be a wake-up call for the international community.

“The question is, will we see countries spring to action? We saw them spring to action to defund the one organisation [UNRWA] that is able to help and provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza on no evidence,” she added. “And yet all of this insurmountable evidence and the ICJ order saying that Israel must stop any genocidal acts, yet we see very little in the way of action by states that can make a difference.”

Netanyahu wants to re-mobilise Israeli army reservists for Rafah operation

The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli army chief of staff Herzi Halevi to recruit again reservists who had been released from military service, Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reports. Halevi’s response, according to the report, was to tell Netanyahu that the army can handle any task.

Channel 13 goes on to say, citing a “senior Israeli official”,  that the army’s Rafah operation is getting closer to starting, but that coordination with the Egyptians has not yet been achieved.

Israel’s Rafah operation will take months and will not destroy Hamas

Mamoun Abu Nowar, a retired general of the Jordanian air force, tells Al Jazeera that Hamas’s forces in Rafah are quite formidable. “The southern part of Gaza is one of [Hamas’s] command posts, as they call them,” he said. “There are strategic tunnels, they go deep, like 60 metres or so [about 200 feet], and the tactical tunnels, which are like 20, 43 metres [66, 141 feet].” “In order to control these tunnels,” he continued, “they have to work very hard, to cut these command posts or destroy them so [Hamas] loses this command as a whole, but this would be a very very difficult fight, it would take months.”

Israel’s plan, in Nowar’s opinion, is to begin by forcing Palestinians in the city, many of whom have been displaced multiple times since the beginning of the war, to leave Rafah and move towards the coast, before launching its attacks. He said this would be a disaster for the civilian population in Rafah, and that Israel would be the “master of genocide” should it follow through with its plans to storm Rafah, which will bring them no closer to their goal of eliminating Hamas.

“This is an endless war, and Hamas will still be there, and the Israelis will not win it,” he said.



Around the Network
SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

Palestinian doctor risks her life to save wounded man

A video circulating on social media shows a female doctor braving Israeli sniper fire to save an injured man in front of the gate of Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip. Dr Amira al-Assouli ran with her back bent from the inner gate of the complex to the outside to rescue a young man who was hit by an Israeli sniper’s bullet and remained bleeding while lying on the ground.

Al-Assouli was on a trip in Egypt but returned to the Gaza Strip on October 7 to perform her humanitarian duty. According to Anadolu Agency, the doctor has continued working at the hospital despite being displaced from her home, which was destroyed by the Israeli army in the town of Abasan, east of Khan Younis.

Palestinians return to a destroyed Gaza City after Israeli forces withdrawal

Palestinians, who went back to their home after the withdrawal of Israeli forces, are seen in the damaged streets and around damaged buildings in the Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City

Death toll in Gaza Strip surpasses 28,000

Gaza’s Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed from the Israeli aggression since October 7 has risen to 28,064, with 67,611 others wounded. “The Israeli occupation committed 16 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, killing 117 and wounding 152 during the past 24 hours,” the ministry said. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead, trapped under the rubble or their bodies strewn on streets.



SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

US Senator Sanders says military aid for Israel ‘unacceptable’ amid fears of Rafah catastrophe

US Senator Bernie Sanders has taken aim at Congress for considering sending $14bn in military aid to Israel as it prepares to launch an assault on Rafah, which has raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe. Sanders said it was “quite unbelievable” that the US was planning to provide more military aid to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government given the enormous death toll and destruction in Gaza.

“Does the United States Congress really want to provide more military aid to Netanyahu so that he can annihilate thousands and thousands more men, women and children? Sanders said in impassioned remarks to the US Senate. “Do we really want to reward Netanyahu even while he ignores virtually everything the president of the United States is asking him to do?”

‘Clearing’ Rafah ‘an outright attack on the innocent’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that the planned Israeli “clearing” of Rafah is “a humanitarian disaster in the making”. “There is no other place for Gazans to go. Clearing Rafah is not war, it is not defense, it is an outright attack on the innocent,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on social media. “This is the moment for the United States to act,” she added, “we must exhaust the levers we have to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the making”.

Assault on Rafah would entail ‘grave violations’ of international law: Irish foreign minister

Ireland’s foreign minister has condemned Israel’s planned assault on Rafah, warning it is certain to entail “grave violations of international humanitarian law.” “It is absolutely clear that a military operation in Rafah, which has effectively now become one of the largest and most overcrowded refugee camps in the world, would entail grave violations of international humanitarian law,” Micheál Martin said in a statement on Saturday.

“It is also absolutely clear that ordering the evacuation of 1.5 million people, who have nowhere safe to go, risks mass forced displacement. This cannot be allowed to happen. All countries, including all EU Member States, must demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. There can be no further equivocation.”

Martin, who is also deputy prime minister, also called on Hamas to “immediately and unconditionally” release all of its captives in Gaza, and criticised the decision of some countries to freeze funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees over some staffs’ alleged links to Hamas. He added that UNRWA Commissioner-General Philip Lazzarini would visit Dublin next week to discuss further support Ireland can provide for his agency’s work.

Israel’s end game ‘the permanent destruction of the Gaza Strip and its people’: MEP

Irish MEP Clare Daly has called for an emergency conference of the EU Council to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and prevent the “murderous onslaught” facing one million Palestinians in Rafah. Daly, a member of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL, said it has been clear since the start of the war that Israel’s “end game was the permanent destruction of the Gaza Strip” and it must be restrained by the European community.

“Right now a million defenceless and starving people with nowhere to go are facing Israel’s murderous onslaught,” Daly said in a post on X. “It is already too late for so much of Gaza, and for so many lives that are never coming back, but it is not too late to STOP THE KILLING and to save lives.”



Israeli transport minister: I will not agree to stop the war

Miri Regev, a member of PM Netanyahu’s Likud Party, has given an interview with Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, in which he said that regardless of any deal Israel agrees to with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli captives, he will not agree to a permanent ceasefire. “We need to understand that if we stop the war, the next step is massacre,” he said.

25 killed in bombing of home east of Rafah: Report

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that 25 people have been killed and dozens more injured in the bombing of a home where displaced people were sheltering East of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

WHO expresses solidarity with PRCS after two ambulance crew killed rescuing 6-year-old

The World Health Organization’s office in the occupied Palestinian territory has issued a statement in solidarity with the Palestine Red Crescent Society after two of its ambulance crew members were killed while trying to reach six-year-old Hind Rajab. “WHO stands in solidarity with our colleagues at PRCS and mourns the deaths of Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, brave PRCS ambulance crew members killed while trying to reach 6-year-old Hind.”

“We offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who were killed, including Hind,” the statement added. “Despite prior coordination to allow the ambulance to reach the location to rescue the child, Hind, the occupation deliberately targeted the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crew,” the PRCS said earlier.






Still denying the 75 years of oppression

France condemns UN rapporteur for denying anti-Semitism behind October 7 attacks

The French government has condemned a UN special rapporteur after she denied that Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel were anti-Semitic. “The October 7 massacre is the largest anti-Semitic massacre of the 21st century. Disputing it is a mistake. Seeming to justify it, by including the name of the United Nations, is a disgrace,” France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a post on X. “These comments are all the more scandalous since the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of racism are at the heart of the founding of the UN.”

The rebuke comes after Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, disputed French President Emmanuel Macron’s description this week of the attacks as the “greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century”. “The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression,” Albanese said on X. “France & the international community did nothing to prevent it. My respects to the victims.”

Ofcourse France wouldn't want to look into the past, admitting the Sykes-Picot agreement and French colonialism is a big part of the mess the Middle East is in. Stick to the approved Hasbara, conflict started on Oct 7 and Hamas just hates jews because.



SvennoJ on 10 February 2024

I hope the renewed smear campaign of UNWRA isn't a cover to start the invasion of Rafah. It probably is :/

It's already being repeated by US media as fact...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/foreign-policy/2849332/hamas-compound-found-under-unrwa-gaza-headquarters/

Israel calls on UNRWA boss to resign over alleged Hamas compound under Gaza HQ

Israel’s foreign minister has called for the resignation of the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees following the alleged discovery of a Hamas compound under the organisation’s headquarters in Gaza. The call comes after UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said his agency could not “confirm or otherwise comment” on the reports and “did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza”.

“The exposure of @UNRWA‘s Gaza headquarters’ deep involvement with Hamas, including its use for terror activities and as an access point to terror tunnels, requires immediate action,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X. “@UNLazzarini‘s claim of unawareness is not only absurd but also an affront to common sense. His prompt resignation is imperative.”

UNRWA staff left Gaza City headquarters on October 12: Chief

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has said that Israeli forces “have not informed UNRWA officially” of an “alleged tunnel” under Gaza City headquarters the UN agency’s staff left in early October last year. UNRWA has not used the compound since staff departed on October 12 “following the Israeli evacuation orders and as bombardment intensified in the area”, he said.

Lazzarini added that UNRWA had only learned of the allegations and the presence of Israeli troops within the headquarters through media reports. “These recent media reports merit an independent inquiry that is currently not possible to undertake given Gaza is an active war zone,” he added.


The key again is in the timing. The IDF has left Gaza city and now suddenly comes with these new allegations.

More pictures from today of people returning to Gaza City

Palestinians search through Gaza City destruction after Israeli forces withdraw







SvennoJ on 10 February 2024


Israel's Allies PANIC In Desperate Effort To Deflect Blame



zero129 on 11 February 2024

Honestly the way Israel is allowed to get away with this is just beyond words. I dont know what to say. I honestly at this stage would almost believe all them conspiracy folk who used to say the world is ruled by them or at least the US anyways.