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

SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

US assessing civilian harm from American weapons in Israel, State Department says

The United States is assessing civilian harm from US weapons in Israel, a State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Tuesday. “We do seek to thoroughly assess reports of civilian harm by authorized recipients of US-provided defense articles around the world, including under the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, the CHIRG,” Miller said at a news briefing.

The acknowledgment of the use of the CHIRG comes as US officials say they are pressing Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying on his most recent trip to the region, that the toll remains too high. It also comes as the Biden administration faces public outrage over its continued support to Israel in the conflict – outrage that could have political ramifications in an election year.

Key context: Miller suggested that the CHIRG review would not have an impact on the US policy toward the conflict. “That process is not intended to function as a rapid response mechanism,” he said. “Rather it is designed to systematically assess civilian harm incidents and develop appropriate policy responses to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring in the future and to drive partners to conduct military operations in accordance with international humanitarian law."

Well maybe useful for the next genocide... Another non starter.


Turkey's president makes first trip to Egypt in more than 10 years on Tuesday to discuss Gaza

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first visit to Egypt since 2012 on Wednesday.


Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, center left, is welcomed by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, center right, at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, on February 14.

Live feeds from news outlets showed Erdogan in Cairo, disembarking his plane with the first lady and being greeted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Erdogan is due to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip — including a potential ceasefire and delivering aid —with Sisi, according to a spokesperson of the Egyptian Presidency. 

Rift in Turkey-Egypt relations: Diplomatic ties between the two Mediterranean major-Muslim countries reached a low point after now-Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a military coup to oust the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s first democratically elected government. Erdogan, whose religious conservative government had close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, was outraged when it was overthrown in 2014, called Sisi an “illegitimate tyrant.” 

As Turkey continued to back the Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region, the relationship continued to deteriorate. Egypt was also part of the years-long blockade of Qatar led by Saudi Arabia and UAE while Turkey stood by Doha. Much to Ankara’s frustration, in 2020 Egypt inked a maritime agreement with Turkey’s main rival Greece in the eastern Mediterranean.

Thawing of diplomatic relations: Only in 2021, following the end of the diplomatic crisis, did relations between Ankara and Cairo begin to warm. Despite strained political ties, trade has more than doubled since an Egypt-Turkey free trade deal came into effect in 2007.

Murat Aslan, an international politics professor at Hasan Kalyoncu University, says Erdogan’s trip is a turning point in relations for the two countries. “The region needs cooperation, not confrontation,” he told CNN. 



Spain and Ireland request EU investigation into whether Israel is complying with human rights obligations


Palestinian children march during a protest demanding an end to the war and their right to live, education and play on February 14, in Rafah, Gaza.

Ireland and Spain have requested an EU investigation into whether or not Israel is “complying with its obligations to respect human rights in Gaza,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on social media on Wednesday.

Sanchez and Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar wrote a letter to the President of the European Commission, asking the Commission to “undertake an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the EU/Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship.”

The leaders told EU chief Ursula von der Leyen that they are “deeply concerned at the deteriorating situation in Israel and Gaza,” especially with the impact the conflict is having on “innocent Palestinians, especially children and women.” Noting the provisional measures imposed by the International Court of Justice in late January, where it was ordered that Israel must take “all measures” to prevent genocide in Gaza, the leaders called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to prevent “further irreversible harm to the people of Gaza."

A spokesperson for the European Commission, Arianna Podesta, told CNN that the Commission received the letter on Wednesday morning. “So of course, what we will do now is look into it,” she said.



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SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

Settler violence organised strategy to dispossess Palestinians: Peace Now

The Israeli settlement watchdog says that “behind every violent settler lies an entire governmental system that supports and funds them”. Peace Now cited as an example, the Har Hevron Regional Council, which initiated the establishment of an illegal agricultural outpost belonging to Yinon Levy, one of the settlers who were imposed American sanctions after evidence of his involvement in violence against Palestinians was received.

“Settler violence is not an isolated incident but rather a part of an organised strategy to dispossess Palestinians of their lands,” it says. The US and several European states have recently imposed sanctions on some settlers, whom it labels as “extremists”. “The settlers on whom sanctions were imposed are not the story; they are merely the branches of a much larger tree. Instead of fixating on four leaves, the focus should be on the forest as a whole,” Peace Now says.



Israel’s defence ministry expects 20,000 more soldiers to need rehabilitation this year

The ministry’s rehabilitation centre says it has dealt with more than 5,500 soldiers since October 7. It expects 20,000 more in the coming year, including 16,000 soldiers with injuries sustained in the war on Gaza. The centre also says it currently helping about 62,000 soldiers, many of whom are physically injured, but also who are suffering from PTSD. It did not provide exact numbers for the latter.

Nvm having to deal with the guilt once the full scale of war crimes becomes known. Israel is sending their youth to be traumatized as well.



Activist expresses defiance after Israel demolishes his home in occupied East Jerusalem

Fakhri Abu Diab has told Al Jazeera that the demolition of his family home by Israel in the neighbourhood of Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, will not end the efforts to protect his ancestral land. “If they demolish our homes, they will not destroy our resolve, and we will remain steadfast in our land,” Abu Diab said.

We reported earlier that the family was forcefully evicted from the home they had been living in for 38 years. The Israeli-run municipality refused to issue a permit for him to build or expand, as is the unwritten rule against Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. “Its proximity to the Al-Aqsa mosque made this house a target but the idea is to forcibly displace all Palestinians,” he said. “In Gaza, they are trying to expel Palestinians. And on this end, Jerusalem is in the eye of the storm, while Israeli authorities want to rid it of Palestinians and to change the makeup of the population.”

 

Two children among four killed in Israel’s air attacks on southern Lebanon

At least four people have been killed and 11 wounded in two Israeli air raids on the towns of Souaneh and Adshit, in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s civil defence. One woman and her two children were killed in Souaneh, while one person was killed in Adshit.

Israeli aircraft target towns and villages in southern Lebanon with air strikes.

Israeli air attacks reported across Gaza

Al Jazeera correspondents are reporting attacks across Gaza, including in the southern part of the strip, where more than half of the population has sought shelter. Artillery shelling hit the centre of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Israeli warplanes also carried out repeated raids on the southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City.



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

Israeli Spokesperson Won't Provide Evidence For UNRWA Accusations

British Politician Asks Sunak Govt On Israel Killing 6 Year-Old Hind Rajab



Same old response, conditions need to be ripe (as in Hamas out of Gaza) before a ceasefire... UK fully supports Rafa massacre.



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

Israeli hostage families seek justice with war crimes complaint against Hamas

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/middleeast/israeli-hostage-families-war-crimes-complaint-intl


Representatives of families of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 hold a press conference after submitting legal filings to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on February 14.

About 100 family members of Israeli hostages, including two former hostages, arrived in the Dutch city of The Hague on Wednesday to file a legal complaint against Hamas at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The complaint, spearheaded by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, calls for the ICC to prosecute Hamas’s leaders for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over the killing, kidnapping and sexual violence carried out during the October 7 terrorist attack.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan is already investigating potential war crimes committed by both Hamas and Israel since October 7, but has yet to file any charges.

Aboard El Al flight 131 – named for the number of days the hostages have spent in captivity – family members told CNN about their desire to hold Hamas accountable for the crimes committed against their families as well as how they hope to continue building public pressure to secure a deal to free their loved ones from captivity.

“We hope that prosecutor Karim Khan will help us to achieve justice,” said Hagit Chen, the mother of Itay Chen, a 20-year-old Israeli soldier who is also a US citizen. “I need my kid back home. So we hope to get the justice and also that the world will help us to get justice. This situation cannot go on anymore.”


Better way to handle it than blocking aid, starving innocent civilians. The ICC has been investigating Hamas (and Israel) since 2021 for the events in the Hamas-Israel conflict in 2014 that led to another round of bombing of Gaza.

Goodluck, the ICC seems kinda pointless and since Israel hasn't ratified the ICC they have been unable to investigate much on the ground...

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-khan-kc-cairo-situation-state-palestine-and-israel (Oct 30 2023)

And one can't watch videos of innocent Israelis being hunted down on a Saturday morning at a party and not pause to think for a moment at the hatred and the cruelty that underpinned those attacks. These acts that we saw on the 7th of October are not acts that accord with our humanity. They are acts that are repugnant to any person that believes in God. They're the most un-Islamic acts and cannot be committed in the name of a religion whose very name is peace.

As I stated five days after the attacks that took place on the 7th of October, we have jurisdiction over crimes committed by the nationals of state parties. And therefore that jurisdiction continues over any Rome Statute crimes committed by Palestinian nationals or the nationals of any state parties on Israeli territory, if that is proven. And whilst Israel is not a member of the ICC, I stand ready to work with state parties and non-state parties alike in pursuit of accountability. My primary and indeed my only objective must be to achieve justice for the victims and to uphold my own solemn declaration under the Rome Statute as an independent prosecutor, impartially looking at the evidence and vindicating the rights of victims whether they are in Israel or Palestine.

Since the 7th of October, I really intensified my efforts to get in and access the locations where crimes were committed in Israel, to meet the families of those that are grieving, those that are living with fear, as if time has stood still at an acutely painful moment, waiting for their loved ones, worried, where are those hostages that were taken and praying for their return? And I've similarly made every effort to enter Gaza, but it has not been possible. In Gaza, I wanted to meet those who are suffering such tremendous pain, to hear their experiences firsthand, and very importantly, to promise to them, to give a commitment to them, that their birthright is justice. They own justice and they deserve justice as much as any other of God's creation deserves justice.



zeldaring on 14 February 2024

I'm so tired of this like you can post a video of Israel lining people up and shooting them dead and the US and west would still make a excuse for them. I can't even watch anymore.



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SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

I'm so tired of Western Media covering for Israel

Netanyahu says Hamas must change its position for talks to continue

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said that Hamas must change its negotiating position before talks can continue in Cairo.

Negotiations on a ceasefire as well as hostage and prisoner releases – using Qatar and Egypt as intermediaries – had been ongoing before Israel’s delegation returned from Cairo on Tuesday. “In Cairo, Israel was not given any new proposal by Hamas for the release of our hostages,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. “Prime Minister Netanyahu insists that Israel will not surrender to the delusional demands of Hamas.” “A change in Hamas' positions will allow progress in the negotiations.”

A US official on Tuesday said the talks in Cairo were productive and serious, but did not arrive at a breakthrough that would result in a final deal. A second US official said the outstanding area of disagreement among the parties in the hostage talks is the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to hostages that would be released as part of the deal.

CNN previously reported that Hamas' counterproposal included a call to release “all prisoners in Israeli prisons, including women, children, the elderly (over 50 years old), and the sick, who were arrested up until the date of signing this agreement.”

CIA, Qatar and Mossad leave Cairo as hurdles remain on Israel-Hamas deal, diplomatic source says

Israel has told mediators they will continue to engage in talks that could lead to a hostage release and a fighting pause in Gaza but have so far rejected a counterproposal made by Hamas that demanded a large release of Palestinian prisoners, a diplomat familiar with the discussions said. CIA director Bill Burns, the Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Mossad Director David Barnea left Cairo following the talks on Tuesday.

Talks continue but no further meetings are currently planned until Hamas responds, the diplomat and another source familiar with the discussion said. Despite little apparent concrete progress in Cairo, mediators remain encouraged that talks have not stopped despite the impasse and a deal is not expected to be imminently reached, the second source added.


7 days ago:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/07/hamas-proposes-three-stage-ceasefire-over-135-days-leading-to-end-of-war.html

Netanyahu rejects ceasefire proposal, insists on total victory over Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday total victory in Gaza was within reach, rejecting the latest offer from Hamas for a ceasefire to ensure the return of hostages still held in the besieged enclave.

Netanyahu renewed a pledge to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement, saying there was no alternative for Israel but bringing about the collapse of Hamas. “The day after is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas,” he told a press conference, insisting that total victory against Hamas was the only solution to the Gaza war.



Today

Netanyahu promises ‘powerful’ action in Rafah

“We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action also in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones,” the Israeli prime minister says on X.

The more-than-1.4 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah have been waiting in fear for the start of the Israeli military’s offensive, as it steps up air raids on Gaza’s southernmost city. Leaders of the international community have come out in force to condemn the looming operation, saying that thousands will die if Israel goes ahead with it. Last week, the US said that it would not support an operation in Rafah without a plan to protect civilians.



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

Israeli forces kill Gaza political analyst, frequent Al Jazeeera guest

Israeli forces killed Ayman Rafati, his wife and children after shelling his home north of Gaza City, says Ramy Abdu, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Abdu has accused Israel of silencing voices from Gaza, while others have called it part of an ongoing scholasticide, a term that has become popular to refer to Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system.

The Israeli army has previously killed poets, professors and academics, and approximately 100 journalists.

‘We will continue’: Al Jazeera’s injured correspondent Ismail Abu Omar

Lying in a hospital bed with bruises on his face, Abu Omar, who was severely injured in an Israeli drone attack on Tuesday, had a defiant message: Israeli violence will not deter journalism in the Gaza Strip. Abu Omar had his leg amputated after the attack, which also wounded the network’s cameraman Ahmad Matar.

“Despite all the crimes Israel is committing against journalists – displacing, killing and injuring them – journalists’ mission in the Gaza Strip continues to convey our message to the entire world because our Palestinian people are being slaughtered by the Israeli war machine,” Abu Omar said. “We will continue the coverage. And we will continue to document Israel’s crimes and to show our people’s suffering and worries in the Gaza Strip.”

He added that what saddens him is that the dangerous work Gaza journalists do of gathering footage and testimonies about Israeli atrocities throughout the past 125 days has not moved the world to stop the war.




Top US official confirms Israel not allowing flour into Gaza

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the Israeli government has not allowed the aid into Gaza despite promises to the US government. Sullivan also addressed the expected Rafah offensive, the possible truce deal and Lebanon escalation. Here’s what he had to say:

  • “That flour has not moved the way that we had expected it would move, and we expect that Israel will follow through on its commitment to get that flower into Gaza.”
  • The US is asking Israel to formulate a “credible” plan for its Rafah assault that would consider: protecting civilians in the crowded city, ensuring the flow of aid and the proximity of the fighting to the Egyptian border.
  • “Innocent civilians in Gaza suffered extraordinary pain and loss these last four months.”
  • The US backs an extended pause in the fighting through a captives deal, but wants to see Hamas “ultimately defeated”.
  • Washington will continue to work to ensure that Israelis are safe from the “threat” of Hezbollah at the country’s northern border.

Israel used Gaza war to prevent almost all of West Bank olive harvest in 2023

Israeli rights group B’Tselem says every year, Israel extensively restricts Palestinians’ ability to carry out the harvest. In 2023, as the war in the Gaza Strip raged, however, these restrictions “reached new heights”. “The systemic obstruction of the olive harvest, augmented by organised settler violence against harvesters and their property is … part of Israel’s longstanding violent policy, which aims to cement the apartheid regime in the West Bank and allow continued expansion of settlements,” the group says.

“The 2023 harvest was especially important this year as the Palestinian economy is already struggling due to the war in Gaza – particularly because of the prohibition on labourers entering Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of public sector salaries.”

 

War in Gaza has ‘complicated’ peace efforts in Yemen

The UN’s special envoy to Yemen has said that regional tensions, Houthi raids in the Red Sea, and a campaign of US attacks along with a decision to redesignate the Houthis as a “terrorist organisation” are complicating efforts to find a political solution to the yearslong conflict in Yemen.

“They [the parties] were close last year to reaching some kind of potential agreement. What the Security Council has been hearing here on Wednesday is that now that has been, not completely derailed because of the current situation [in the region], but certainly being made a lot more complicated,” Al Jazeera correspondent Gabriel Elizondo reported from UN headquarters in New York.

Houthi-affiliated media has reported several attacks on Yemen today alone, though they have been occurring at regular intervals since January.

UN envoy warns of ‘dangerous’ escalation cycle in Yemen

The United Nations special envoy for Yemen has warned against what he called a “dangerous escalatory cycle” in the country, where the US has carried out attacks against the Houthis amid persistent raids on ships in the Red Sea. The Yemen-based group has said it is targeting Israel-linked vessels to exert pressure for an end to the war in Gaza.

“Three things need to happen in the immediate term to create an off-ramp to this dangerous escalatory cycle,” Hans Grundberg said in comments before the UN Security Council, calling for regional deescalation, for all parties to refrain from “military opportunism” and for progress towards a mediated agreement to end the country’s longstanding conflict.




Israel identifies soldier killed in Hezbollah strike

The Israeli military says it has notified the family of a soldier killed in a Hezbollah strike on a base in northern Israel earlier in the day, identifying her as a 20-year-old sergeant named Amar Sarah Benjo. Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said several other soldiers were injured in the strike, one seriously.

“All the soldiers were evacuated to receive medical treatment at a hospital and their families were informed,” Hagari said in a statement.

Civilians injured, Hezbollah fighter dead: More on Israeli strikes on Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil Defense said one person was killed in an Israeli attack on the village of Adashit. The National News Agency adds that 10 others were injured and that they “were rushed to nearby hospitals in Nabatieh”. The NNA named the dead person as Hezbollah fighter Hassan Ali Najm, and Hezbollah has confirmed his death in a statement, as we reported earlier. The NNA added that this strike “caused major damages to commercial establishments, shops, homes and cars”.

In Gaza, Biden administration complicit: Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

The nonprofit for the global prevention of genocide has said that the administration “must take immediate steps to prevent further destruction, loss of life, and displacement in Gaza and the West Bank”.

“None of the Biden Administration’s tactics to deny genocide and avoid accountability will withstand the test of time. President Biden and key administration officials are on a path to be remembered as the principal enablers of one of the worst genocides in the 21st century,” the group said in a statement.



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

How many war crimes per hour are enough for the international community to actually do something


Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel's evacuation order for Gaza's Nasser Hospital

Doctors Without Borders has condemned the Israeli military's order to evacuate patients, staff and displaced people from Gaza's Nasser Hospital on Tuesday. The organization's staff remained at the medical complex in Khan Younis on Wednesday to treat patients "amid near impossible conditions," the medical charity, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said in a statement.

There has been heavy fighting near Nasser Hospital for weeks, trapping staff, patients and displaced people inside the medical complex with "very little access to essential supplies," MSF said. “People have been forced into an impossible situation: stay at Nasser hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life,” said Lisa Macheiner, a MSF project coordinator in Gaza.

“Hospitals should be considered as safe places and shouldn’t even be evacuated in the first place."

With so much destruction in northern Gaza and the current offensive unfolding in the southern part of the besieged enclave, MSF said that many people have no safe place to flee. “People ask us ‘Where is it safe? Where should we go?’, but there is no answer to that, and it really leads to a feeling of despair,” Macheiner said.



Israeli snipers shoot and kill civilians as they flee hospital in Gaza, according to eyewitness

Doctors and medical officials in Gaza say Israeli snipers have shot dead a number of people as they tried to leave the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza over recent days. A trauma surgeon at the hospital said he was eyewitness to the shootings and said at least two people were killed by snipers on Tuesday, with more shot and injured.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have ordered hospital staff and patients inside the medical complex to evacuate and said it had “opened a secure route” for civilians to leave. But at least eight people trying to escape along the route came under gunfire on Tuesday, said the surgeon, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

In a series of voice notes, the surgeon said medical teams at the hospital have been under intense bombardment for at least three days. His testimony was shared with CNN by his colleague. Among those injured, the surgeon said, was a 16-year-old boy shot with four bullets at the hospital gate.

"The tanks and the snipers (are) surrounding the hospital from all directions,” the surgeon said in a voice message early Wednesday. “They threatened to bomb the hospital within half an hour."

The Nasser Medical Complex is the largest remaining functioning medical facility in Gaza. Reached for comment late Wednesday, the IDF confirmed to CNN that Israeli troops are operating in the area of the Nasser Medical Complex and said they will get back to CNN if anything changes, but did not respond directly to the allegations. Israel has repeatedly said that its military forces do not target civilians.

Israeli forces killed handcuffed prisoner sent in to evacuate Nasser Hospital: Doctor

Israeli forces shot and killed a handcuffed prisoner after sending him in to evacuate Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis, Ahmed Moghrabi, the head of plastic surgery at Nasser Hospital, has said. “They sent a hostage with cuffed hands to the hospital telling us that we should evacuate. They opened fire and they killed the hostage as well,” Moghrabi said in a video posted on social media.

Mohammed El Helou, a Palestinian journalist at the hospital, told the Intercept that the young handcuffed man was sent in to tell people to “get out of the hospital because they are going to blow it up”. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that Israeli snipers killed three people at Nasser Hospital on Tuesday, the same day the young man who was sent in to evacuate the hospital was reportedly killed.

Hundreds of medical staff and patients who cannot move are still trapped inside the hospital with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying that people were afraid to evacuate the hospital after reports of people being shot outside.

Deadly Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip as people flee Rafah

There’s been an intensification of Israeli military strikes in the past few hours across different areas in the Gaza Strip, in particular, in central and southern Gaza. In Rafah district, the eastern areas of the city have been widely bombarded by Israeli artillery, destroying agricultural lands adjacent to the border with Egypt. In the city of Khan Younis, there is a clear bombardment, with the demolishing of complete neighbourhoods. There have been non-stop attacks there and clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers.

But the most critical situation is in the central part of the Gaza Strip where 14 Palestinians have been reported killed in an attack that targeted a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp. A series of air strikes have also targeted the Maghazi refugee camp and Deir el-Balah city.

We need to clearly understand that these are areas where Palestinians have recently been fleeing to as they are trying to get away from a potential military incursion in Rafah where Israeli jets continue to pound the city. Alongside in the northern part of Gaza, three Palestinians have been killed in Gaza City after a residential building was targeted.


This picture, taken from Rafah, shows smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the distance following Israeli bombardment on the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday

Israeli strike kills six, including children, in Gaza City car attack

Six people, including children, have been killed by an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City in northern Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Anas Al Shareef reports on the aftermath of the strike.

A warning – some of the footage in this report may be distressing.

Families left with memories of cousins killed by Israeli snipers

Three-year-old Imad Abu Al-Qare’a and his cousin Hadeel were killed by Israeli snipers. Now, their families only have memories of the two.

PRCS shows ambulance riddled with Israeli bullet holes

The Palestine Red Crescent has shared a video via X that it says shows one of its ambulances that was severely damaged at the hands of Israeli soldiers. The video clearly shows bullet holes in the front windscreen of the ambulance.

The PRCS says that the ambulance was shot at and its crew assaulted “while they were attempting to transfer oxygen cylinders from Nasser Hospital to Al-Amal Hospital about a week ago”. Per the Geneva Convention governing the laws of war, medical transports are to be respected and protected in all circumstances.

Palestinian diplomat shares details of Israel’s killing of his relatives

Husam Zomlot, ambassador to the UK, has identified the Palestinian girl who was found hanging from a wall in Gaza, half of her body severed, as his wife’s cousin. Seven-year-old Sidra Hassouna was killed along with her family when Israel shelled a residential building in Rafah. The family had been displaced from the north of Gaza and took shelter in the south.

“My wife’s aunt Suzan, her husband Fouzy Hassouna, two of their sons, Muhammad and Karam, Karam’s wife Amouna and her three children [7-year-old twins Sidra and Suzan, and 15-month-old Malik] were all killed,” Zomlot wrote on X.

US ‘devastated’ by killing of Palestinian-American teen by Israel

The US State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs has decried the killing of 17-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Khdour, who was fatally shot by Israeli forces this week. “The United States has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens. We urgently call for a quick, thorough, and transparent investigation, including full accountability,” the office said in a social media post.

The statement echoes Washington’s calls for an investigation into the killing of Tawfiq Ajaq, another 17-year-old US citizen killed in the West Bank last month. But Israel rarely holds its forces and settlers accountable for attacking Palestinians.

In 2022, Israel also killed two US citizens: Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.

US President Joe Biden is currently working with Congress to secure $14bn in additional aid for Israel.



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

More calls for ceasefire and stay out of Rafah is all there is, no sanctions, no actions, just empty statements

Israeli assault on Rafah would create humanitarian catastrophe, German foreign minister says

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned Israel's plans to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, saying it would create a "humanitarian catastrophe." 

Speaking during a news conference after she met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Baerbock drew attention to the plight of displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah. "More than half of Gaza's population is currently seeking shelter in Rafah. 1.3 million people are waiting there in a very small space. They don't really have anywhere else to go right now," Baerbock said. "These people cannot simply vanish into thin air. If the Israeli army were to launch an offensive on Rafah under these conditions, it would be a humanitarian catastrophe in the making," she said.

This comes as Netanyahu promised a "powerful action" in Rafah after the civilian population is evacuated, according to a statement posted on X. During her talks, Baerbock said she pushed for "more border crossings be opened quickly" so more humanitarian aid and medical supplies can reach people in Gaza. 

The foreign minister also laid out Germany's support for a ceasefire, saying it would create "a window of opportunity to free the hostages and to get more humanitarian aid in." 

Yet continues to send more munitions to kill people

Rafah assault would be fulfillment of Israeli promise to ‘flatten the strip’

While Israel has said that it will seek the evacuation of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians trapped in Rafah before launching a military operation there, Middle East specialist Hafsa Halawa says Israel’s destructive campaign has rendered much of Gaza unlivable.

“It [Rafah] sits right at the border with Egypt. It’s seen by the Egyptians as a major breach of their national security, and ultimately it brings the question of where will these 1.3 to 1.4 million people go?” Halawa told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story programme. “The rest of Gaza is effectively uninhabitable, there are no services, we’ve heard the talk of famine for months now, and now we’re at a stage where this is really the Israeli government enacting what they promised on the first week after the attacks of October 7, which is to flatten the Strip.”


At least Biden won't deport Palestinians to Gaza (isn't it standard practice not to deport people to war zones??)

Biden shields Palestinians in US from deportation

The US president has signed a decree to protect Palestinians in the country from deportation for 18 months because of the deteriorating conditions in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories. “While I remain focused on improving the humanitarian situation, many civilians remain in danger; therefore, I am directing the deferral of removal of certain Palestinians who are present in the United States,” Biden says in the order.

Palestinians convicted of a felony, deemed a “danger to public safety” or whose presence is determined to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” will not be protected by the decree.

Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel’s war on Gaza, also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to issue work permits for Palestinians who fall under the order.

Oh my country is concerned, not concerned enough to stop arms trade with Israel or re-instate UNWRA funding

Canada, Australia, New Zealand say they are ‘gravely concerned’ about Rafah operation

The prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand have issued a joint statement saying a “humanitarian ceasefire is urgently needed” in Gaza and that they are “gravely concerned” about looming Israeli military operations in Rafah. “A military operation into Rafah would be catastrophic. About 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge in the area, including many of our citizens and their families,” the statement reads.

“With the humanitarian situation in Gaza already dire, the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating. We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path.”

The statement – cosigned by Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese, Justin Trudeau and Christopher Luxon – also said that Israel “must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community” and that Palestinian civilians can’t be made to “pay the price of defeating Hamas”.



Concerned for being complicit to the coming massacre


‘Save us from this genocide’ – Children in Rafah protest for their lives



SvennoJ on 14 February 2024

Israeli crimes ‘igniting’ West Bank: Palestinian ministry

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the “Israeli army and settler crimes” in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, including the continuing home demolitions and land confiscation. “The Israeli government is challenging all calls and efforts to establish calm in the occupied West Bank. It is leading us down a path that widens the conflict,” a statement read.

“The international community’s failure to put an end to the genocide in Gaza and the violations by settlers and the occupation in the West Bank is encouraging the Israeli government to persist in carrying out its crimes.”

Israeli settlers storm Palestinian towns, perform religious rituals

A number of Palestinians were beaten when Israeli forces, accompanied by a group of armed settlers, stormed the village of al-Majaz in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.

The settlers also desecrated the village mosque, breaking its windows, ripping up a Quran and shouting threats and insults through its loudspeaker. Wafa and our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues are also reporting that Israeli settlers, protected by the Israeli army, have stormed the town of Kifl Haris, north of Salfit, and performed religious rituals.

Israeli military raids have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in the following locations:

  • The city of Qalqilya
  • The city of Tulkarem
  • The city of Nablus
  • The town of al-Ram, north of occupied East Jerusalem
  • The Shuafat refugee camp, northeast of occupied East Jerusalem
  • The town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah
  • Palestinians have thrown Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, who stormed the Arroub camp, north of Hebron

Fakhri Abu Diab stands in rubble of Jerusalem home demolished by Israel

Palestinian activist Fakhri Abu Diab stands in the rubble of his home after it was demolished by Jerusalem municipality workers in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan on Wednesday. Abu Diab told Al Jazeera that the demolition of his family home will not end the efforts to protect his ancestral land.

‘If they demolish our homes, they will not destroy our resolve, and we will remain steadfast in our land,’ ‘Its proximity to the Al-Aqsa Mosque made this house a target, but the idea is to forcibly displace all Palestinians,’ Abu Diab said