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

SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Tenth Palestinian prisoner dies in Israeli custody since October 7

A Palestinian man from Gaza has died in the clinic of Ramleh Prison in central Israel, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. The man, whose identity has yet to be revealed, was detained after Israel’s war on Gaza erupted and becomes the 10th Palestinian prisoner to die in Israeli custody since October 7.

At least 248 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967.


German lawyers sue politicians over ‘complicity in Gaza genocide’

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/23/german-lawyers-sue-politicians-including-scholz-over-complicity-in-gaza

A group of lawyers has filed a criminal complaint with the German federal prosecutor against senior German politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, accusing them of “aiding and abetting” the genocide they say is being committed by Israel in Gaza.

In addition to Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Finance Minister Christian Lindner and others stand accused. The lawyers behind the case represent families of two Palestinians with roots in the Gaza Strip, including that of Palestinian-German migration scholar Nora Ragab.

“We, Palestinians in the diaspora, will not stand by and watch a genocide being committed against our families and our people,” Ragab said in a statement. “We will use all means at our disposal .. today we aim to hold the German government accountable for its complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”

‘Even in tents, we are not safe’

On Thursday, at least 40 people were killed and scores wounded by Israeli attacks in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah that flattened houses. One attack on a tent by an Apache attack aircraft killed two and injured many members of the al-Ramlawi family who were seeking shelter in the west of Deir el-Balah.

“My cousin, who lost his daughter, [woke up to the] horrors, with the sound of the Apache warplane getting louder and louder,” said Hassan al-Ramlawi, 33, one of the family members. “It’s just a tent. They are displaced and evacuated from the north here to seek refuge. They were sleeping. Why were they attacked? Even in tents, we are not safe.”

Tens of thousands facing health complications, famine: Gaza ministry

At least 350,000 chronic patients, 60,000 pregnant women, and about 700,000 children in Gaza are exposed to serious health complications as a result of malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical facilities, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Half a million people in northern Gaza suffer from famine that is silently killing them, the ministry added.

UN report: ‘Gross rights violations’ by all parties in Israel, Gaza, West Bank

An annual UN report has identified “gross human rights violations” committed by all parties in Israel and the Palestinian territories and demands accountability and justice to foster peace. “The entrenched impunity … cannot be permitted to continue. There must be accountability on all sides for violations seen over 56 years of occupation and the 16 years of blockade of Gaza, and up to today,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in an accompanying statement.

PRCS says its staff member killed in Rafah bombing

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says one of its staff members has been killed in the southern city of Rafah after Israeli raids hit the house where he was sheltering with his family. Fayez As’ad Mohammad Muammar was a volunteer paramedic for the humanitarian organisation in Gaza, the charity said.

More than one million internally displaced Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, once designated by Israel as a “safe zone” for civilians.

Palestinian children struggle to support families

More provocations

Video footage authenticated by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit shows Palestinian worshippers being turned away or forcibly removed as they attempt to head to Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians are routinely prevented from reaching Al-Aqsa, the third-holiest site in the world for Muslims.

Israeli prime minister’s office said earlier this week Israel will impose some restrictions on accessing the Old City site during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.



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SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Slovenia at ICJ: Self-determination ‘fundamental’ right for all

Slovenia has argued in favour of the ICJ giving an advisory opinion and stressed the Israeli occupation breaches fundamental human rights, including the right to self-determination. Here’s what its representative said:

  • The need for negotiations is not a compelling reason for the court to decline giving an advisory opinion. On the contrary, negotiations can only achieve a lasting solution on the basis of the court’s legal directives.
  • A Palestinian state must exist alongside an Israeli state and Slovenia reiterates its support for a negotiated two-state solution.
  • The right to self-determination is not “some random right” but runs parallel to the equal rights of people. It is a “fundamental human right having a broad scope of application”.
  • The people of Slovenia were able to establish their own sovereign and independent state and believe this right to be an “indispensable pillar of the international legal order”.
  • The ongoing Israeli occupation is an impediment to the right to self-determination and the establishment of the Palestinian state.

Sudan argues in favour of ICJ advisory opinion

Sudan’s representatives have focused their remarks at the ICJ on the court’s duty to provide an advisory opinion, arguing:

  • The ICJ should issue an advisory opinion to “convey a definitive message to both Israel and Palestine that they need to redouble their efforts to achieve peace and security”.
  • The UN General Assembly has the power to ask the ICJ to provide an advisory opinion on any legal question. This request has been made in accordance to the UN Charter and the questions are legal in character.
  • The court has the discretion to decide whether or not to respond. However, it is an established jurisprudential principle that a request should not be rebuked.
  • Israel is not cooperating in the proceedings, but lack of collaboration is often the case in UN proceedings and should not be an impediment.

Switzerland at ICJ: Israel set up ‘coercive environment’ in Palestinian territories

Switzerland has argued in its remarks before the ICJ that Israel has put in place in the occupied Palestinian territories a “coercive environment” that “cannot be justified under security requirements because it affects the well-being of the population and is discriminatory in nature”.

Swiss representatives argued that Israel, as the occupier, has the obligation to maintain the status quo on the territory and protects the well-being of the population. The Fourth Geneva Convention reaffirms the relevance of human rights in the context of occupation, they said.

The occupier might enforce new laws to guarantee the security of the occupier, the order of public life and the respect of humanitarian law, but the measures adopted by Israel in the occupied territories contravene the previously mentioned criteria and aggravate the risk of forced population transfers and the use of lethal force preventively and disproportionately, said the Swiss representatives.

Syria tells ICJ Israel’s occupation must end ‘without delay’

Representatives of Syria have called on the ICJ to issue an advisory decision in light of the many Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, including restrictions of movement, the application of a two-tier legal system and the consolidation of settlements and other forms of institutional discrimination.

The delegation reminded the court that a “huge record of UN resolutions” that Israel continues to violate – 180 from the UN General Assembly and 227 of the Security Council – testify to its wrongdoings.

The forced displacement of Palestinians and the confiscation of their land in parallel to the transfer of settlers is prohibited under international law. The court should clarify that Palestinians must be able to exercise their right to self-determination and that Israel must remove all structures that prevent this “without delay.”

US prioritising protection of its ally over international law

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says the opposition of countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom to the ICJ case weighing the legality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories demonstrates their commitment to shielding an ally from accountability.

“The thing about imperial powers like the UK and the US is that they don’t give a damn about the action, in this case, the occupation. They care for the actor, and the actor is an ally, Israel,” Bishara said. “That’s why this court is important, because this court does not see actors. It doesn’t care about the identity of the actor, it only cares about the nature of the act. And in this case, it’s 75 years of dispossession, 56 years of occupation,” he added.

“The UK and the US don’t want you to know the legal opinion of this question, because what they care about is the cynical calculus of geopolitics,” said Bishara.


The US doesn't even care about its own citizens getting killed in the Westbank

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/world/palestinian-americans-demand-answers-invs/index.html

The death of Khdour, a Florida-born US citizen, just weeks after another 17-year-old American citizen was shot under strikingly similar circumstances in the occupied West Bank, has underscored the frustrations among Palestinian-Americans who say the United States is doing little to respond to the deaths of their loved ones.

Three weeks before Khdour’s death, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a 17-year-old Palestinian-American who grew up in Louisiana, was also shot in the head by apparent Israeli gunmen. The IDF told CNN they received a report that an off-duty police officer and an Israeli civilian shot at a Palestinian “suspected of throwing stones” – which his family vehemently denies – and that the Israeli Police are investigating the shooting.

More than a month later, no arrests have been made in the case, and the family, which has received limited updates from authorities, is wondering why the US government doesn’t have answers.

A number of American citizens have also been detained by Israeli forces in recent weeks. Blinken would not give details on their cases, citing privacy laws. “We insist that people be treated fairly, that they be treated with due process, and that they be treated humanely,” Blinken said. “That’s something that, regardless of where an American citizen might be detained, we insist on. And we’ll continue to insist on.”

His comments did little to convince Khdour’s family. “We don’t need talking, man,” Adnan Khdour, Mohammad’s uncle, said. “We need something. We want to see something.”

The killing or detention of American citizens in occupied Palestinian territories by Israelis and the concerns about a lack of accountability date back years. In 2003, 23-year-old American activist Rachel Corrie was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Nine years later, an Israeli civil court ruled Corrie’s death an accident.

In the spring of 2022, prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while reporting in the West Bank city of Jenin. That November, Defense Minister Benny Gantz confirmed that Israel would not be cooperating with a US probe into Abu Akleh’s death. A CNN investigation suggested that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces, despite wearing a protective helmet and a blue protective vest marked “Press.”

“The US has created a situation where Israel, a foreign government, can kill US citizens knowing that the US is not going to hold them accountable,” said Maria LaHood, deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit organization focused on civil and human rights issues. “It cements Israel’s impunity … the utter lack of accountability has created the situation we’re in right now.”



SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Israeli foreign minister slams Brazil’s Lula in bizarre social media post

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has taken to social media to slam Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has feuded with Israel over the last week after sharply criticizing the war in Gaza and comparing it to the Holocaust.

“No one will separate our people – not even you @LulaOficial,” Katz said in a social media post with an artificial image depicting Brazilians and Israelis standing side-by-side, with large Brazilian and Israeli flags in the background. “Shabbat shalom!”

However, the image, which appears to be AI-generated, depicts a crowd with distorted and misshapen faces. The Brazilian flag, usually adorned with the motto “order and progress”, appears incoherent. Some of the Israeli flags also appear heavily distorted.


Israeli forces bomb area near southern Gaza hospital: PRCS

As a result of the attack, the al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis suffered “significant damage”, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X. The hospital has been under siege by Israeli forces for weeks, and the organisation has previously warned that the situation in the hospital is “dire”.


PRCS carries out another round of evacuations from Nasser Hospital

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that it carried out a fourth round of evacuations from Nasser Hospital, where conditions are dire amid continuing Israeli attacks and a siege that has deprived the facility of essential supplies.

“For the fourth time, the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance teams carried out an evacuation mission from Nasser Hospital after it went out of service, in coordination with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),” the group said in a social media post.

“Four ambulance vehicles evacuated 18 wounded individuals, including two newborns who lost their mothers. The cases were transferred to the International Medical Corps and the Indonesian Field hospitals in Rafah Governorate, as well as the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, in addition to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.”


House in Deir el-Balah targeted without warning

It’s been another bloody night for the majority of areas in the Gaza Strip, specifically in the central region of the coastal enclave, with the Deir el-Balah area being the main focus. A residential building belonging to the Zuaiter family (in Deir el-Balah) was targeted without any prior warning, leading to the destruction of the home and several deaths and injuries. The injured were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

At least 24 dead in Israeli strike on home in Deir el-Balah

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, at least 24 civilians were killed, mostly women and children. Many others were injured, Wafa said, as the house was full of displaced Palestinians who have fled violence in other areas of the Strip.



SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Hamas representative gives news conference

Here are some of the key points Osama Hamdan, an official for the group in Beirut, Lebanon made:

  • This is a declared war of starvation against 700,000 Palestinians.
  • The whole world is watching every day as our children and our women are screaming and suffering in the north [of the Gaza Strip].
  • Our people are waiting for the International community and the United Nations, with all its agencies, to take concrete steps immediately to bring aid into the Strip.
  • The explosion is coming in response to any restrictions on Muslims entering Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan. We call on the people of our Palestinian people in the occupied territories, Jerusalem and the West Bank, to reject this criminal decision, and to escalate the confrontation of the occupation everywhere, and to mobilize and march and band together in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.
  • The occupation’s positions and responses to the mediators are negative and pose many obstacles to reaching an agreement. Netanyahu is procrastinating and evading and aims to disrupt reaching an agreement. He does not care about the release of prisoners held by the resistance, but rather it is a card he uses to achieve his goals.

Fighting rages in Gaza City neighbourhood

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, has hit an Israeli Merkva tank with mortar shells in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, the group said in a statement. In another part of the area, Qassam fighters targeted a group of Israeli soldiers inside a house with an anti-personnel missile, leading to an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.

UNRWA no longer functioning in northern Gaza

A spokesperson for the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA has said that the organisation is no longer able to provide assistance in northern Gaza, where it only has “a few staff”, and that civil order has collapsed amid Israel’s ongoing assault and severe restrictions on food access.

UNRWA says it is struggling to offer assistance to millions of Palestinians in Gaza and throughout the region after several key donor countries froze funding for the humanitarian group following Israeli allegations that a dozen of its employees took part in the October 7 attacks. Israel has not provided evidence for those claims nearly one month after first putting them forward.

“I believe we have some weeks, five or six, less than that. After that, we will not be able to continue providing services, not only in Gaza, but also in places like Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, West Bank and East Jerusalem,” UNRWA spokesperson Adnan Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 23 February 2024

SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Settlements ‘contrary’ to international law: Germany

Germany has condemned the latest Israeli plans to construct thousands of new settler homes in the occupied West Bank. “You know our position on settlement construction. It is contrary to international law and this also applies when new construction projects are carried out,” deputy Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer told a news conference in Berlin.

Israel will advance plans for the construction of more than 3,000 settlement homes, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced late Thursday night.

Blinken says US ‘disappointed’ in announcement of new Israeli settlements

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has just finished speaking at a news conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here is what he said on Israel’s announcement on Thursday of building new settlements in the occupied West Bank:

"We are disappointed … it has been longstanding US policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace. They are also inconsistent with international law."

Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. In our judgement, it only weakens, doesn’t strengthen Israel’s security.

Blinken says territory of Gaza should not be reduced

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reiterated the Biden administration’s opposition to an Israeli “reoccupation” of Gaza and that the strip should not see its territory reduced after the war. The UN considered Gaza occupied by Israel before the war, due to Israel’s yearslong siege of the territory.

The Israeli government has said that it will maintain military control of the strip after the war and has already destroyed large swaths of the territory near the boundary with Israel for an apparent “buffer zone”, demolishing many buildings and reducing the territory of Gaza.

The US has not announced any steps to pressure Israel over such actions, despite the fact that they run counter to US calls and that experts have said they could constitute war crimes. “Gaza … cannot be a platform for terrorism. There should be no Israeli reoccupation of Gaza. The size of Gaza territory should not be reduced,” Blinken said in Buenos Aires, where he is attending a G20 meeting of foreign ministers.

What is the ‘Pompeo Doctrine’ the Biden administration just scrapped?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/18/politics/pompeo-west-bank-settlements-announcement/index.html

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4485259-us-reverses-trump-policy-israeli-settlements/

The Biden administration has reversed the “Pompeo Doctrine”, a Trump-era policy that declined to say that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law.

While the US has historically done little to pressure Israel to halt or roll back settlement expansion, the move by the Trump administration, named for firmly pro-Israel Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, symbolically reversed several decades of US policy, which acknowledged the illegality of such settlements.

In remarks today, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israeli settlements are a hindrance to peace and “inconsistent with international law”. The US official made no mention of tangible consequences Israel could face for new settlement construction, as it announced in plans earlier today. The current administration also took more than three years to scrap the doctrine, voicing opposition to a proposed UN resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal last year.

While the Biden administration has sought to distinguish itself from the Trump administration, it has kept the policies of the previous White House largely in place, keeping the US embassy in Jerusalem and placing normalisation deals between Israel and Arab states at the centre of its Middle East policy.

The administration recently announced an executive order applying sanctions to Israeli settlers who take part in violent attacks against Palestinians, but the scope of those efforts remains to be seen and have thus far been limited to a small handful of people. (4 to be exact)

 

Biden is terrible but Trump only poured gas on the fire while giving Netanyahu everything he wants.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-22/ty-article/.premium/putin-netanyahu-and-trump-a-lying-dangerous-trio/0000018d-d0f4-d06c-abbd-d8f4021b0000?v=1708718298185&lts=1708718352598&lts=1708718362273

All three use blustering, nationalistic slogans and platitudes to portray strength. All three promote legal amendments to fortify their power. Diligently try to abolish or severely impair checks and balances, and weaken the judiciary. All three, in different forms, intimidate political rivals with vitriol, implicit and explicit threats. All three also created a worshipping cult around them and surrounded themselves with incoherent sycophants in their respective parliaments, who avidly help spread the poison.

But their most important and frequently used tactic is attrition. To tire and depress the public into submission and resignation. Through an endless campaign of lies, conspiracy theories, false information and alternative interpretations of reality, they rely on the majority of the public to get confused, disbelieve everything, doubt all the facts.

Some of this is a matter of character. A lot of it is a tool set to increase and perpetuate power. And then there's a deeper ideological dimension. Umberto Eco's famous 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism" lists 14 features or tenets of fascism. Nine of them wholly apply to the "three amigos":

- Cult of tradition: This is strongest with Putin's czarist nostalgia and Mother Russia references, but is also at the heart of Trump's "Make America Great Again" branding and Netanyahu's messianic vision of Israel.
- Rejection of modernism: All three see liberty, reason, science and the concept of doubt/questioning as dangers.
- Disagreement is treason: Naturally. Their ideology is: I am the embodiment of patriotism, only I define what patriotism is. Those who disagree don't understand the dangers and are ingrates who fail to see my historical grandeur. 
- Appeal to social frustration: Immigrants, intellectuals and dissenters from the outside, and Mexicans, Ukrainians and Arabs from the inside, are taking over our country, polluting our culture and changing our beloved country.
- Obsession with a plot: Conspiracy theories and plots are everywhere. Everyone is out to get them, there are vile external forces at work, the deep state is conniving against them.
- The enemy is both strong and weak: Ukraine is a threat, Iran is a threat, China is a threat. All three are existential threats, but we can deal with them because they are weak.
- Machismo and weaponry: Goes without saying.
- Selective populism: They each purport to represent the voice of the real people against treacherous elites.
- Newspeak: Black is white, day is night, truth is false, lies are an alternative truth, there are facts and alternative facts.



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SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

‘It’s Bisan From Gaza, And It’s Getting Harder To Share Videos’

Israel keeps cutting off the internet in Gaza, making it harder for journalists like Bisan to share videos. The only fiber-optic line that connects the strip to the outside world goes through Israel, and it often turns off access. And continuous bombardment has also led to massive outages of the mobile telecom networks.

Many people in Gaza now rely on e-SIMs that catch signal from mobile towers in Israel or Egypt, but to get cellular coverage to upload videos journalists often have to climb to high places, making them targets for sniper fire.

Bisan Owda has been sharing videos online since before Oct. 7, but she gave us an inside look at how difficult it is for journalists to get news out of Gaza.



SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Former US ambassador to Israel hits out at Blinken over settlement policy

David Friedman, who served as ambassador to Israel under the Trump administration and earned a reputation for controversial acts underscoring his firm support for Israel, has slammed current Secretary of State Blinken’s remarks earlier today that Israeli settlements violate international law, a position the Trump administration did not take.

“Blinken is 100% wrong. I researched this for over a year with many State Department lawyers,” Friedman said in a social media post. “There is nothing illegal about Jews living in their biblical homeland.”

There is an overwhelming consensus that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories violate international law, and are often built on lands expropriated from Palestinians.



Please leave your home and give the land back to the natives if you believe that nonsense. And sure, there is nothing wrong living there. Get Palestinian immigrant status and buy a house, like normal people do when moving to another country.


US senator applauds restoration of settlement policy

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen has welcomed the Biden administration’s decision to reverse a Trump-era policy that refused to say that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law.

“I applaud @SecBlinken for taking this important step to reassert U.S. policy against illegal settlements and to advance a viable two-state future where Israelis and Palestinians can live with equal measures of dignity, rights and security,” the senator said in a social media post.

US civil liberties group says university must reinstate banned pro-Palestinian groups

The New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said that Columbia University must reinstate two student groups who were suspended by the university for pro-Palestinian activism, or face a court challenge.

“We’ve notified @Columbia that they must reverse the unlawful suspensions of two student groups [@ColumbiaSJP & @JVPColumbia] for engaging in peaceful protest and to reinstate both chapters by March 1. If the university fails to respond by then, we’re prepared to sue,” the group said in a social media post.

“Universities should be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning – not sites of censorship where administrators, donors, and politicians squash political discourse they don’t approve of.”



SvennoJ on 23 February 2024

Inspiring video

What Happens When Evil Wins?

Over the last five months, we've seen an unprecedented escalation in violence in Gaza. Most people I know feel like they're going crazy. We're all seeing the same footage, but no matter how angry we all get and how much we try to change public opinion, nothing seems to come of it. So...what can we do? Has evil won?



SvennoJ on 24 February 2024

Disturbing Footage Emerges Of Israelis Blocking Humanitarian Aid

 

How Western media chooses who they champion and vilify | The Listening Post



Comparing the coverage of Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny with Julian Paul Assange (founder of wikileaks)
At 12 minutes: coverage of Gaza war on Israeli TV
At 14 minutes: Germany Namibia genocide explained and ongoing struggle for recognition


Brazilian President Lula Doubles Down On Gaza Genocide Claims Against Israel



Brazil's president alleged Saturday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, doubling down on harsh rhetoric after stirring controversy a week earlier by comparing Israel's military offensive in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust.



SvennoJ on 24 February 2024

Latest casualty figures

Gaza Killed: 29,606 Wounded: 69,737
Occupied West Bank Killed: 406 Wounded: 4,600 Arrested: 7,210
Israel: Killed on October 7: 1,139 (revised down from 1,400) Wounded: 2,962 Soldiers killed since ground invasion: 237



Israeli army maps homes of Ma’ale Adumim shooters

The Israeli army says it has mapped out two homes in Zaatara in the east of Bethlehem, belonging to Palestinians responsible for a deadly shooting attack near the occupied West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, suggesting an imminent demolition.

Israel routinely destroys the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks.

Ahmed al-Wahsh, 31, and brothers Muhammad Zawahra, 26, and Kathem Zawahra, 31, were accused of opening fire at Israelis on the Route 1 highway heading towards Jerusalem, killing one person and wounding 11.

Israeli officer who shot Maale Adumim attacker opposes arms policy

An Israeli army officer hailed as a hero for shooting a Palestinian attacker near the Maale Adumim settlement has spoken out against calls from members of the government to distribute more arms to Israeli citizens. Twenty-three-year-old Hananya Ben Shimon said in a post on X that he did not want to be used to promote “divisive or aggressive discourse” to push the policy of arming as many civilians as possible for a quick response to security incidents.

“Politicians need to find a better solution, because a gun is a band-aid,” he said. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said following the attack on Thursday that a disaster was averted thanks to armed police and civilians and that it was clear “that guns save lives”.

More guns are never the solution and certainly not with trigger happy civilians. Not that the 'professionals' are any better https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-civilian-killed-by-soldier-jerusalem-1.7046525




Mapping the Red Sea attacks

https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2024/mapping-red-sea-shipping-attacks/

On November 19, Iran-backed Houthi forces began attacking shipping vessels affiliated with Israel passing through the Red Sea. The attacks, launched in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, have disrupted international trade on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

Since then, at least 40 vessels have been attacked, according to data analysed by Ambrey Analytics, a global maritime risk management firm. Three months on, Al Jazeera examines the impact these attacks have had on international trade, the risks faced by seafarers, and the US and UK strikes on Yemen.




Paris talks on Gaza ceasefire, release of captives

According to Israeli media reports, there are indications a deal has been reached in Paris that could see a six-week pause in the fighting in Gaza in exchange for around 40 Israeli captives and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails.

These are preliminary details, but Israeli officials are saying they are approaching this with cautious optimism. They say they now have an outline of a framework that they can move forward with in the negotiations. Israel’s delegation in Paris will present its report to Israel’s war cabinet.

But there are still a lot of sticking points, like which Israeli captives or Palestinian prisoners are going to be released, or how much humanitarian aid will be allowed into Gaza. The US reportedly wants this deal to happen before the start of the Muslim holy month Ramadan, which is just more than two weeks away.

Citing two sources familiar with the contents of the talks, The Jerusalem Post said the war cabinet was expected to receive an update from the negotiating team and decide on further steps, which may happen as early as Saturday night.



Israel to inform ICJ of measures in compliance with genocide case

Israel will send a formal notification to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday to detail how it is complying with provisional measures handed down by the court, the Times of Israel has reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the foreign and justice ministries to draft a report detailing how Israel is complying with provisional measures to safeguard Palestinian civilians during its war on Gaza, the newspaper said, citing a Hebrew-language report on the Ynet news site.

The document will focus on the orders to “prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide”, take immediate steps to “enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” and “prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence” pertaining to allegations of genocide.

Israel is waging what many governments have called a genocide in Gaza and is now preparing for an offensive on the southern city of Rafah, where over a million people are displaced, raising questions on its commitment to abide by the provisional measures set by the UN court.

Israel hasn’t taken steps to protect civilians: PA

In light of the ICJ ruling and 141 days into a “genocide”, Israel has not taken any steps to secure their basic humanitarian needs either, says the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) foreign ministry. “This includes security, food, potable water, medicine and electricity,” the ministry said in a statement.

“On the contrary, Israel has been carrying out more massacres, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe and famine, and turning Gaza Strip into a desolate, unliveable area.”



‘A little BBQ is great fun’: Israeli soldier brags about burning Gaza homes on TikTok

In a post on his TikTok account, Israeli soldier Izador Elgabril speaks to his phone camera, bragging about the arson of residential buildings in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. He speaks sarcastically, saying that Israeli settlements will come to the area in a year and a half, specifically the “Sevouni settlement”. He then turns the camera around and shows buildings engulfed in flames amid the ruins of Gaza City.

“A little BBQ is great fun,” he can be heard saying.

On February 7, we reported on a statement from the Gaza Government Media Office saying that 3,000 housing units had been burned by the Israeli army, mostly in the central and northern Gaza Strip. This statement appeared to confirm reporting from Israeli newspaper Haaretz which found that Israeli army commanders have been ordering mass burning of unoccupied homes in Gaza.

“After the structure is set on fire along with everything inside it, it is allowed to burn out until it is rendered useless,” Haaretz wrote on February 1. This video follows a trend of Israeli soldiers filming themselves mocking Palestinians and posting the footage to social media, acts that have earned a warning from the coutnry’s top military lawyer.


Israeli soldier Izidor Elgabril films himself bragging about burning down homes in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City and uploads it to his TikTok account