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

SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Hop on the bandwagon

US, Jordan militaries launch new airdrop over northern Gaza

The US military says it conducted a new airdrop of humanitarian aid over northern Gaza in cooperation with the Jordanian air force.

Sixteen 170kg (375-pound) bundles of rice, flour, milk, pasta and canned food were dropped from a C-130 military cargo plane, US Central Command said in a statement.

The heavily criticised airdrop plan will carry on as Israel continues to restrict much more effective humanitarian aid deliveries via land crossings. The airdrops provide only a fraction of what is needed for hundreds of thousands of Gaza people facing famine.

That's 2.72 tonnes, feeds 1,813 people for one day. (provided they find water and gas/wood to cook with)

Germany says Israel must open Gaza border crossings

The German foreign office confirmed an airdrop of humanitarian aid with France and Jordan over northern Gaza, comprising of four pallets with one tonne of food each. More airdrops with France and Jordan will come in the next few days as “the Franco-German team remains on the ground and is coordinating closely with our Jordanian partners”.

“Every package counts. But airdrops are not enough. To supply the people in Gaza, the Israeli government urgently needs to open more border crossings, especially to allow more aid delivers overland by truck.”

4 tonnes, feeds 2,666 people for one day.

Cyprus says second aid ship ready to leave for Gaza

A second ship loaded with aid for Gaza will soon depart, Cyprus says, as the first vessel returned from the war-ravaged territory after successfully delivering its cargo. The Jennifer is set “to depart for Gaza today or tomorrow”, Cyprus’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told state radio.

The US charity World Central Kitchen said its team finished unloading food and other desperately needed supplies from the barge towed by the Spanish aid vessel Open Arms.

The second vessel is expected to carry 240 tonnes of food, World Central Kitchen said. The cargo includes “pallets of canned goods and bulk product including beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt”. It also includes a forklift and a crane to assist with deliveries. The United Arab Emirates sent “a special load of 120kg fresh dates”, it added.

240 tonnes, 12 trucks, feeds 160,000 people for one day. Yet with a week round trip time and 2 ships, food for 45,000 people a day. Still better than air drops, and much safer.


Gaza aid flow: ‘A drop of water in the ocean’

The miniscule amount of humanitarian relief entering Gaza is a far cry from what is desperately needed to save hundreds of thousands people facing famine, an analyst says. Tamer Qarmout, from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says the amount of aid is only “a fraction of what used to get into Gaza”.

“On a daily basis in a normal situation, Gaza would receive 500 trucks to serve the 2.3 million population. With these loads coming from the air and sea, they represent about two to three trucks. It’s nothing. It’s a drop in the ocean,” Qarmout told Al Jazeera.

“The question is why when you have all these land crossings. They’re cheaper and much faster. So why resort to these ineffective mechanisms? This will not address the humanitarian needs. But this is what the Israelis want – someone to relieve them of their economic burden as the occupier.”

Palestinians search for drinking water during Israeli blockade


Children wait to fill bottles with water in southern Gaza

Limited quantities of water are provided by charities. Reports say people in Gaza are dying because of dehydration and malnutrition



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SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Euro-Med Monitor refutes Israeli account of ‘flour massacre’ in Gaza

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report that refutes Israel’s account of the latest “flour massacre” at the Kuwaiti Roundabout where dozens of Palestinian aid seekers were killed.

The Israeli military claimed Palestinian gunmen initiated the carnage and released drone footage of a man shooting. But the rights group says it has evidence that goes against the allegations. It said the shooting video appears to have taken place close to the Dawla Roundabout, which is roughly 2km (1.2 miles) away from the attack on Thursday.

Bullets found in the bodies of the dead and wounded were NATO-issued and discharged from Israeli weapons. The evidence is consistent with a similar event in late February in which 110 Palestinians were killed, the group said.



Combat continuing between Israel and Palestinian fighters across Gaza

The latest report by the Critical Threats Project think tank documents continuing ground fighting across the Gaza Strip. The Nahal Brigade of the Israeli military continues to conduct operations in the northern and central parts of the besieged enclave, it said.

Israeli forces launched raids from a corridor they built in the middle of Gaza to support operations in the strip, which also restricts movement to the north. The report said satellite imagery showed flattened terrain north of the Hamad neighbourhood of residential buildings, indicating Israeli tanks and bulldozers operated in the area.

Fatah’s military wing, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, detonated an explosive device targeting Israeli forces in Hamad.



Qassam Brigades claims attacks on Israel military vehicles

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released a video showing attacks on multiple Israeli military vehicles. It shows Palestinian fighters attacking tanks and troop carriers in what Hamas said was the al-Zahra area of central Gaza.

Israel has promised to destroy Hamas but after five months of war, its fighters continue to battle troops throughout the Gaza Strip.


Palestinian medics save lives with limited resources

This video from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society shows how medics work to save a young injured girl despite limited resources in Gaza. Jabalia, in the northern part of the besieged enclave where the girl was injured, has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli military during six months of war.

Israel only allows limited amounts of aid, including medical supplies and medicine, into northern Gaza where the humanitarian crisis unfolding is most severe.




Just no words

Israeli air attack kills 36 family members in central Gaza

Displaced by Israeli bombardment, the Tabatibi family gathered to eat during the first Friday night of Ramadan – a reunion that soon turned into a bloodbath. An air attack hit the building where they stayed as women prepared their fast-breaking meal, killing 36 members of the family.

Mohammed al-Tabatibi, 19, stood in the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir el-Balah where the bodies of his relatives were spread out. “This is my mother, this is my father, this is my aunt and these are my brothers,” Tabatibi said in tears.

Asked about the attack, the Israeli military said it targeted two “terror operatives” in the Nuseirat refugee camp “throughout the night”. “The circumstances of the incident are still being reviewed,” it said.



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

‘Tactics of starvation’: Belgian PM discusses Gaza in Qatar

The Qatari foreign ministry says Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo met his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. The two discussed the latest developments in Gaza and occupied Palestinian territory, “emphasising the need to accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Strip without obstacles”.

De Croo earlier said during a meeting with UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini that Israel needs to provide more humanitarian access to Gaza, and also criticised it for its “tactics of starvation”.




Groundhog day, except every day it does get worse

‘This humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen’

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he’s “gravely concerned” about the Israeli plan for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza. “Further escalation of violence in this densely populated area would lead to many more deaths and suffering, especially with health facilities already overwhelmed,” he wrote on X.

Ghebreyesus said more than one million Palestinians in the southernmost city in Gaza, many of whom have been forcibly displaced by Israeli attacks, have no fully functional and safe health facilities and many are too sick or hungry to move again.

“This humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen.”



Israel’s Smotrich wants Netanyahu to block delegation to Doha truce talks

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forbid a negotiating team from leaving for Doha to engage in truce talks. He wrote in a post on X that he was proven right when he opposed previous attempts to secure an agreement in talks in Paris and Qatar that were ultimately unsuccessful.

“The delusional Hamas stance shows the supporters of the deal in the war cabinet and security establishments have lost their way,” the ultranationalist lawmaker wrote. “Netanyahu must order the delegation to remain in Israel and the [military] to enter Rafah immediately and increase the military pressure until Hamas is destroyed.”


Some more senators are waking up, still a small minority :/

Democratic senator calls on Biden to use arms supplies as leverage against Israel

Democratic US Senator Chris Van Holler says Biden should use Washington’s arms supplies to Israel as leverage to change how Israel is behaving in its war on Gaza. “We need the president and the Biden administration to push harder and to use all the levers of US policy to ensure people don’t die of starvation,” the Maryland senator was quoted as saying in an interview with the London-based Guardian newspaper.

Van Hollen and seven other senators, including Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley, this week sent a letter to the president to argue that Israel is violating US legislation that prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been an obstacle to the president’s efforts to at least create some light at the end of this very dark tunnel,” Van Hollen said.


More dissent in Israel as well

Senior politician threatens to quit Israeli government if not appointed to war cabinet

Gideon Sa’ar, the head of the New Hope party in Israel, says he will resign from the government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to appoint him to the war cabinet.

The politician joined a unity government as part of an emergency measure after the start of the war and his threat on Saturday to join the opposition comes days after he ended a partnership with war cabinet minister Benny Gantz’s party.

Sa’ar has given Netanyahu a deadline of “several days” to appoint him, according to Israeli media. “Each day, we move further away from victory,” Sa’ar said. “There is no concrete plan as I understand it to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas.”

Sa'ar also opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, doesn't matter what side he ends up on

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/new-hope-party



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages in occupied West Bank

Israeli settlers attacked homes of Palestinians in two villages south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

The Wafa news agency cited unnamed sources as saying the village of Burin was attacked by settlers who pelted Palestinians with stones and fired live ammunition into the air as a threat. No injuries were reported. It also quoted Suleiman Dawabsheh, head of the village council of Duma, as saying Israeli settlers stormed a community and threatened residents with forcible eviction.



Hezbollah says it launched 6 attacks on Israel today

Hezbollah has claimed a sixth attack in its border war with Israel. The latest strike came in the evening and targeted “Israeli enemy soldiers” in an area near the border with rockets, the armed Lebanese group said on its Telegram channel.

Its five other attacks, the first of which was launched before noon, targeted Israeli military structures and soldiers using rockets and mortar fire.

New Israeli air raids on Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon

The Israeli military released aerial footage of new air strikes it says targeted two buildings belonging to Hezbollah in the areas of Meiss el-Jabal and Marwahin in southern Lebanon. This follows another air raid on Marwahin earlier targeting the armed group.

The Israeli military also said it detected several rocket launches from southern Lebanon and attacked the sources with artillery fire.


Houthi-run media reports four US, UK strikes on Yemen

The Al Masirah television channel run by the Houthis reports that the US and UK militaries conducted four air strikes on Yemen. The latest attacks were carried out in al-Durayhimi, south of the port city of Hodeidah, a short while ago, it said.

Neither the US nor UK militaries had an immediate reaction to the report but they have launched joint strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen for months as the Iran-backed group continues to attack cargo and military vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

Houthi attacks will lead to major geopolitical changes: Minister

Major-General Mohammad Nasser al-Atefi, the defence minister of the Houthi government in Yemen, says the group’s attacks on cargo and military ships will result in major shifts in the international order.

Dozens of attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which the group says it is carrying out to stop Israel’s war on Gaza, will “inevitably lead to geopolitical changes that accompany a new world order”, he said.

“We are now imposing new rules of engagement, which will make the Americans, the British and the Zionists to pay a heavy price”, he was quoted as saying by the Houthi-run Al Masirah channel. “The Yemenis are not warmongers or aggressors, but the brutal crimes witnessed in Gaza prompt free nations to take a stance, and that includes our people.”



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Israel wants to control education in Gaza and the West bank as well, one of the reasons why they want to get rid of UNWRA

"Towers of Ivory and Steel": Jewish Scholar Says Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom



Israeli scholar Maya Wind’s new book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, documents how Israeli universities directly constrain Palestinian rights by supporting and even developing the policies of occupation and apartheid used by the Israeli state.

“In the West, Israeli universities are considered bastions of pluralism and democracy. But in fact … they are a central pillar of Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians,” says Wind.

She also discusses Israel’s “scholasticide" in Gaza, the "intentional destruction of Palestinian education,” and the movement of conscientious objectors to Israel’s mandatory conscription, in which she took part when she refused to enlist in the army at age 18 and served 40 days in a military prison.



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SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Fuck Trudeau, my vote will go to the Green Party. All the major parties are complicit.

Israel-Gaza: Toronto police arrest at least 2 pro-Palestinian protesters outside Trudeau event



Toronto police arrested at least two demonstrators at a pro-Palestinian protest outside a fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the King Edward Hotel on Friday. Chanting "Justin Trudeau, what do you say? How many kids have you killed today," the group of around 60 protesters waved Palestinian flags and called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas.

“The Prime Minister thinks that it is appropriate to host a fundraising event with $1,700 tickets for purchase, while his government continues to send arms to Israel on month six of its ongoing genocide in Gaza," demonstrator Yara Shoufani said.

Last month, an event that Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were scheduled to attend at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) was cancelled after a demonstration blocked the gallery’s entrance.



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

History Will Damn Israel's Apologists



As I said on TV, it's those who supported this onslaught with questions to answer, not those who opposed it.

Kinda sad to see he's giving up hope on seeing any intervention in this genocide, moving on to the aftermath. Will history damn them? Will the ICC actually do its job this time? I doubt it :(

I fear for my kids, feeling I've lived through the best time to be alive (as a Western Caucasian born in the 70s) and my kids will be dealing with rising extremism, global warming, energy crisis, water crisis and a new normal for brutality by police and military. It's a depressing outlook. I wish I could leave them a better world like my parents left me, but I have no idea how.



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Aid trucks arrive in northern Gaza

Palestinian photographer Hussam Azzam has posted a video on social media showing aid trucks arriving in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday night. The video verified by Al Jazeera shows trucks driving in the dark as electricity has been cut off in the Gaza Strip for months.

The trucks shown are reportedly among 13 trucks which reached Gaza City and Jabalia on Saturday night. Azzam wrote that the humanitarian aid convoy secured entry “through mukhtars [the head of local government of a town or village] and tribes after the Kuwait [roundabout] massacre”.

Israeli forces have repeatedly shot and killed Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City, with the latest limited convoy reportedly the first to arrive without incident in months.


Young Palestinians rejoice as food aid arrives in northern Gaza

Palestinian photographer Mohammed al-Hindi has shared a video of young Palestinians celebrating the arrival of food aid in the northern Gaza Strip. The video, verified by Al Jazeera, shows the young men cheering and whistling as they gathered near piles of large bags of flour.

Al-Hindi said the delivery which arrived on Saturday night was delivered with the assistance of mukhtars and young volunteers.


12 killed in Israeli bombing in Deir el-Balah: Report

Twelve people have been killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.

Wounded children taken to Deir el-Balah hospital after Israeli bombing

Several wounded people, including children, have been taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah after an Israeli attack, videos shared by the Palestinian photographer Omar Al-Dirawi show.

The videos posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera show children, some of them bloodied and covered in grey dust, being carried into the hospital.



UN experts urge oil companies to cut supplies to Israeli army

Two UN human rights experts have called on BP, Chevron and Exxon to stop supplying oil to the Israeli military amid the ongoing war on Gaza.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, cited research from Oil Change International showing that the three companies were supplying oil to the Israeli military through the United States, Brazil, Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Fakhri said the companies “are likely complicit in genocide” and called for called for “economic sanctions”. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, supported Fakhri’s call and said “corporations should cease and desist or face potential liability tomorrow”.





Syrian soldier wounded in Israeli attack: State media

Israeli forces have launched an attack on Syria, wounding at least one Syrian soldier and causing “material damage”, according to the official SANA news agency. The air attacks, which came from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeted southern Syria and took place shortly after midnight, SANA said.

UKMTO reports attack in Gulf of Aden

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency is reporting a new attack in the Gulf of Aden, some 85 nautical miles (157km) northeast of the Yemeni city of Aden. “Authorities are investigating,” the agency said in a post on X.

The UK military agency said a merchant ship travelling through the Gulf of Aden in the early hours of Sunday has reported an explosion in close proximity to the vessel. “No damage to the vessel has been reported and the crew are reported safe. The vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” it added.

US destroys Houthi drones in Yemen

The US military’s Central Command says it destroyed five unmanned surface vessels and one aerial drone in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Saturday night. Centcom forces also intercepted two drones fired from Houthi controlled areas toward the Red Sea on Saturday morning, it said in a post on X. One of the drones was destroyed while the other “is presumed to have crashed into the Red Sea”.



SvennoJ on 16 March 2024

Another round of protests

Pro-Palestinian protests around the world


People carry a banner saying ‘Switzerland is complicit’ and wave Palestinian flags at a protest in Geneva, Switzerland on Saturday


A man waves a Palestinian flag on steps in front of a row of police in in Rome, Italy on Saturday


A cyclist wears a protest sign saying ‘no to war and genocide’ during a protest in Guatemala City on Friday night


People hold a banner and Palestinian flags at a protest in in Naples on Friday


Supporters of a ceasefire in Gaza protest outside a fundraising rally featuring Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Toronto, Canada on Friday



LurkerJ on 17 March 2024
JRPGfan said:

The world gone crazy....

Russian invadeing Ukraine:
400k+ causilites on russian side (military that arnt able bodied anymore to fight) (~180,000 deaths) and 190k+ casulties on ukrines side (~80k deaths). In ukrine thers been over 30,000 civilian deaths as well.

Then theres this..... the Israel hamas war... again, alot of civilian deaths (over 30k as well).

Can we just all chill out?
I miss the 90's, they seemed so much more peacefull.

RolStoppable said:
JRPGfan said:

The world gone crazy....

Russian invadeing Ukraine:
400k+ causilites on russian side (military that arnt able bodied anymore to fight) (~180,000 deaths) and 190k+ casulties on ukrines side (~80k deaths). In ukrine thers been over 30,000 civilian deaths as well.

Then theres this..... the Israel hamas war... again, alot of civilian deaths (over 30k as well).

Can we just all chill out?
I miss the 90's, they seemed so much more peacefull.

Perception of peace is largely tied to how important the various wars are deemed by Europeans and the same holds true for Americans. There are ongoing wars all the time - I think the number of days recorded without active fighting in a war on this planet since 1945 is around 10 (in words: ten) - but us Europeans don't care about Africans and Asians. But we do care about Europe, hence why Ukraine continues to be a persistent topic on the news. And we care about Israel as the only Asian country we give a damn about as a consequence of collective guilt that the holocaust was allowed to happen.

A feeling of guilt that is apparently so strong that it even makes us willing to support the far-right Israelis who commit a genocide in Gaza right now. This is so messed up, because the lesson learned from the holocaust should be that we do not stand by and watch how something like it happens again.

As for the 1990s, it was the time of the civil war in Yugoslavia where also a genocide was committed (much smaller scale than Gaza though). So... selective memory at work here, if even something that happened in Europe is forgotten.

Indeed, it will always be a messed up place, we're lucky where we were born is all. 

The issue with Gaza's genocide is that we're complicit, and the level of complicity is astounding, it can be curbed if real pressure is applied. But there's been non, the occasional empty words but no real action, no matter how proudly genocidal the IDF gets, the weapons, the tax money, the support will continue. We could say it was different a decade ago when the public didn't have strong feelings about this issue but it's clear as day the majority, at the very least, want a ceasefire, but politicians continue to take us for fools, the best they could do is to pull stunts to make it seem like they're doing something and it is just embarrassing to watch, no one is buying it. What a clown show. 

What does the IDF have to do at this stage to get on our bad side? Whatever answer we think of, they've already done it, this is basically a green light to not only continue doing what they're doing, but be even more ambitious with their genocidal and displacement plans. Shame. 

The Yemen war was just as bad, the gulf states came out unscathed, stronger and scarier than ever, even, having learned how to get away with genocide the way Israel does. As if the unchecked corporatocracy at home wasn't destructive enough, we're in for interesting times and I am not looking forward to it.