Palestinians showing their resilience


Busy day tomorrow for Blinken

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s delegation in Tel Aviv expects to discuss the Israeli defense minister's plan for the next phase of the war in Gaza during key meetings on Tuesday, according to a senior US official.

Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put forward the military's plan for the next phase of the war. Gallant’s proposal states that Palestinians not be allowed to return to their homes in northern Gaza until all the remaining hostages are freed. 

The US side is expected to push Israeli officials on an “imminent” transition of the war to a lower-intensity phase, the official said — which the US has not yet seen.


Yet so far the same as with every other visit to 'supposedly' tell Israel to simmer down

Strikes continue to ramp up: The IDF said it hit the southern city of Khan Younis with 30 strikes overnight into Monday. The military has issued several evacuation orders telling civilians to leave much of the area. At least 22,835 Palestinians have been killed and 58,416 others injured in Gaza since October 7, the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Sunday. Israel’s Iron Dome system also intercepted several rockets fired from inside Gaza.

Strikes outside of Israel: A senior Hezbollah commander, Wissam Tawil, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on his car in southern Lebanon, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said in an interview with an Israeli news station on Monday. It comes after an attack killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in southern Beirut last week, for which Israel has not claimed responsibility. Israel and Hezbollah have since traded strikes over the past day, three months since hostilities broke out in October. Separately, the IDF said it killed a Hamas militant in Syria who it says was a central figure in firing rockets from Syria toward Israel.

Widespread raids across the West Bank: Three men were shot and killed as Israeli forces stormed the city of Tulkarem and the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Graphic footage shows one of the men being run over by an Israeli military vehicle as he lay injured on the ground, while there are also reports of Israeli forces preventing ambulances from reaching the injured. The Palestinian Shehab news agency reports that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a coalition of armed Palestinian groups in the West Bank, have said they are engaged in “violent clashes” with the Israeli military in several locations in the Tulkarem refugee camp. There are also local media reports of the Israeli military bombing a location in the camp.

Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues and local media also report that overnight raids are being carried out in the following locations across the occupied West Bank:

I firmly believe that the United States government doesn't care what Israel does. They only care that Israel government officials are saying the quiet part out loud. They openly talk about their genocidal agenda. Words mean nothing, action does. Officials of my countries, the US, say they are "having hard conversations" with Israel. Yet when you look at their actions, they do nothing to stop Israel. In fact, they are doing all they can to stifle any repercussions for Israel at the UN. The only good thing about Israel's government being brazen with their statements is that it has given South Africa ammunition for their case against Israel in The International Court of Justice.

The only people that can stop Israel is Israel.  We can sanction, we can play diplomate, we can voice our concerns at the UN but it really all comes down to Israel.  Anyone believing that the US is going to be the savior of anyone needs to read history.  The US can barely be the savior within their own country let alone outside of their boarders.  What will stop Israel is a concerted effort by the world but the world is divided and thus Israel will always have the green light as long as they do not get overboard with their efforts. The Palestinians have to pretty much pull a Gandhi in order to get the world on their side and even then it might not be enough.

Blinken starring in Groundhog day

Top US diplomat and Netanyahu discuss avoiding civilian harm and protecting infrastructure in Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken "stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza" in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet in Tel Aviv Tuesday, according to a readout by the US State Department.

It suggests that the two sides discussed a proposal by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — also a member of the war cabinet — in which Israel would not allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza until all the remaining hostages are released. A US official told CNN Monday the matter was expected to be a part of the discussion.

Blinken and Netanyahu "discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages and the importance of increasing the level of humanitarian assistance reaching civilians in Gaza," according to a readout State Department.

His meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog also addressed the same issues, while reiterating US support for Israel's"right to ensure the terrorist attacks of October 7 cannot be repeated," according to another readout.

Israel needs to "finish the war", Foreign Minister tells Blinken

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday that his nation’s military needs to “finish the war” with Hamas, in order to secure the return of Israeli hostages and achieve the “security of our people.”

Speaking to Blinken in Tel Aviv, Katz also said that civilians who had been evacuated from towns in northern Israel due to cross-border fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon could not yet return home. “So we have to find a way. A diplomatic way to put a lot of pressure on Iran and Hezbollah to withdraw them as far as we can,” he said, adding: “The thing is to put a lot of pressure now to prevent war tomorrow.”

Hamas leader says Israel will not retrieve hostages until "all Palestinian prisoners are released"

Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, has reiterated the militant group's stance that Hamas will only release Israeli hostages from Gaza after all Palestinian prisoners are released from Israel's prisons.

“They will absolutely not retrieve their captives except after all our prisoners in occupation prisons are released,” Haniyeh said on Tuesday, speaking at an International Union of Muslim Scholars conference in Doha, Qatar.  

Israeli forces have detained 5,755 Palestinians since October 7

Israel-Hezbollah war in Southern Lebanon is heating further up

Hezbollah says its drones targeted IDF military base in northern Israel

Israeli army launches air strikes on Lebanon after Hezbollah attack

PM says Lebanon ready for talks on long-term border stability

Lebanon says Shebaa Farms must be part of conflict solution

German foreign minister condemns Israeli settlers' violence in occupied West Bank

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock denounced Israeli settlers' violence towards Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, against the backdrop of rising number of settler attacks. “It is the responsibility of the Israeli government to implement and enforce the rule of law when people who live here legitimately and are being attacked illegally,” Baerbock told reporters during a visit to the occupied West Bank on Monday. 

Israeli settlers or soldiers have killed at least 340 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last month that 2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2005, when it began keeping records, according to a report from the organization.

CNN previously reported on the violence, including one attack in the town of Huwara, where the assault was so brutal that the Israeli military commander for the West Bank called it a “pogrom.”

Remember: Israel has occupied the West Bank since seizing the territory from Jordanian military occupation in 1967. It later agreed to transfer limited control over parts of the territory to the Palestinian Authority, after agreements signed in the 1990s.

Israel has continued to build settlements in the occupied West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, encroaching into land that Palestinians and the international community view as territory for a future Palestinian state. Israel views the West Bank as “disputed territory,” and contends its settlement policy is legal.

New settlement plan along occupied East Jerusalem perimeter

Israeli raid on West Bank refugee camp results in 14 Palestinians injured

Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque compound

Lack of work, tax revenue escalate occupied West Bank tensions

Israel expanding offensive in southern and central Gaza

A hospital in central Gaza reports receiving dozens of casualties from several parts of central Gaza due to heavy overnight air strikes. Video shot for CNN shows multiple casualties in the yard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza. The hospital says 57 people were killed and nearly 70 injured. At least 10 of those killed were children, the hospital said.

2023: ‘Year of genocide’ against Palestinian children

IDF says nine of its soldiers were killed in Gaza on Monday

Israel is facing a genocide case in international court. Could it halt the war in Gaza?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/09/middleeast/israel-genocide-case-world-court-gaza-mime-intl

Israel is set to appear before the International Court of Justice this week in a high stakes case that could determine the course of the brutal war in Gaza.

It is an unprecedented case. Experts say it is the first time that the Jewish state is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

The South African government, a successor to the apartheid regime that was made a pariah on the international stage three decades ago, brought the case against Israel, accusing it of being in breach of its obligations under the convention in its war on Hamas in Gaza. Eliav Lieblich, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, told CNN the case is significant politically and legally. “An allegation of genocide is the gravest international legal allegation that can be made against a state,” he said.

South Africa has also asked the court to issue “provisional measures” ordering Israel to stop its war in Gaza, which it said was “necessary in this case to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people.” A provisional measure is a temporary order to halt actions, or an injunction, pending a final ruling.  (a final ruling could take years)

Why is this case significant?

While the ICJ has ruled against Israel in the past, it did so through non-binding “advisory opinions” that are requested by UN bodies such as the General Assembly. This is the first time Israel is being sued in the ICJ in what is known as a “contentious case,” where states directly raise cases against each other.

In 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s separation barrier in the occupied West Bank to be in violation of international law, and called for it to be torn down. Israel ignored that decision. If the ICJ eventually rules that Israel is directly responsible for genocide, it will be the first time it has found a state has commited genocide, experts said.

“This would be a significant precedent first and foremost because the ICJ never ruled, so far, that a state actually committed genocide,” Lieblich said. “The farthest it went was to rule that Serbia failed to prevent genocide by militias in Srebrenica. In this sense, such a ruling would be legally uncharted territory.” While no state has been found to be directly responsible for genocide by the court, both Myanmar and Russia have faced provisional measures in genocide cases in recent years.

All ICJ judgements are final, without appeal and binding.

But the ICJ can’t guarantee compliance. In March 2022, for example, the court ordered Russia to immediately halt its military campaign in Ukraine. Kyiv, which brought the case, disputed the grounds for Russia’s invasion, and asked for emergency measures against Russia to halt the violence before the case was heard in full.

What happens if the court orders Israel to halt the war?

Daniel Machover, a London-based lawyer and international justice expert, told CNN that a provisional measure should be a quick decision that would be taken before there is a final ruling on genocide.

South Africa, he said, only needs to demonstrate that it has standing to bring the case, has acted on its duty to prevent genocide, that there is a “plausible legal argument” that violations of the Genocide Convention are or may be taking place, and that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to Gaza residents before the court gives its final decision, such that the court needs to order Israel to stop the war.

Francis Boyle, an American human rights lawyer who won two requests at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention against Yugoslavia on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Democracy Now that based on his review of the documents submitted by South Africa, he believes Pretoria will indeed win “an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians.”

Boyle, based on his experience in the Bosnian case, said the order could come within a week of this week’s hearing.

Lieblich doubts that Israel would cease the fighting altogether should the court issue an injunction on the war. Instead, it could attack the legitimacy of the court and its judges, “considering that some of them are from states that don’t recognize Israel.” It would also matter whether the decision is unanimous, he added. “The consequences of non-compliance might range from reputational harm and political pressure to sanctions and other measures by third states or further resolutions in the UN,” he said. “The key for Israel would probably be how its key allies would act in such a case.”

Could a ruling have implications outside Israel?

The fallout of an ICJ ruling could spread beyond Israel, according to experts. It would not only embarrass Israel’s closest ally, the US, but could also deem Washington complicit in the alleged violation of the Genocide Convention.

“Even though the South African application focuses on Israel, it has huge implications for the United States, especially President Joe Biden and his principal lieutenants,” wrote John Mearsheimer, an American political scientist. “Why? Because there is little doubt that the Biden administration is complicitous” in Israel’s war, he said.

Biden has acknowledged that Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate” bombing in Gaza, but he has also vowed to protect the country. The US has bypassed Congress twice to sell military equipment to Israel during the war. “Leaving aside the legal implications of his behavior, Biden’s name – and America’s name – will be forever associated with what is likely to become one of the textbook cases of attempted genocide,” Mearsheimer wrote.

Even if Israel ignores an order by the ICJ, there will be a legal obligation among other signatories to comply, said Machover. “So, anyone assisting Israel at that point will be in breach of that order. We could have worldwide litigation if states don’t stop assisting Israel… there will be legal ripples across the world” he said.

The case could also have an impact on the Israeli public, Machover said. He believes that a significant number of Israelis “have not looked in the mirror” and lack awareness of the real impact of the war on Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ case, he hopes, would prompt the Israeli public to engage in “some sort of self-reflection.”

Israeli President says South Africa's genocide case against Israel is "atrocious and preposterous"

Israel's President Isaac Herzog has told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the legal case brought by South Africa against Israel is "atrocious and preposterous." 

South Africa is accusing Israel of being “in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention.” It says that “acts and omissions by Israel . . . are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent . . . to destroy Palestinians in Gaza,” according to an ICJ statement.

"On Thursday, a proceeding will start in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, whereby South Africa has sued Israel for supposed genocide. There's nothing more atrocious and preposterous than this claim," Herzog told reporters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after their meeting, Herzog thanked Blinken for his "steadfast commitment" to Israel's safety. He said Israel will present a case "using self-defense," to show that it is doing its "utmost" under "extremely complicated circumstances" to avert civilian casualties in Gaza. "We are alerting, we are calling, we are showing, we are sending leaflets, we are using all the means that international law enables us in order to move out people," Herzog maintained.

Israel Is PRESSURING World Politicians To Condemn Genocide Accusations

UK foreign secretary says he is worried Israel may have broken international law in Gaza

Well duh, but similar analysis as for BBC reporting

Major US newspapers’ coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza ‘showed bias’

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/

A quantitative analysis by The Intercept shows leading US publications skewed their coverage towards Israeli narratives in the first six weeks of the assault on Gaza. The Intercept said it had collected more than 1,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times about the war and tallied up the usages of certain key terms and the context in which they were used.

“The tallies reveal a gross imbalance in the way Israelis and pro-Israel figures are covered versus Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices — with usages that favor Israeli narratives over Palestinian ones,” The Intercept said. The newspapers in question used the term “slaughter” to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1. “Massacre” was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2, while “horrific” was used 36 to 4.

Despite Israel’s war on Gaza being perhaps the deadliest war for children – almost entirely Palestinian – in modern history, “Only two headlines out of over 1,100 news articles in the study mention the word ‘children’ related to Gazan children”, The Intercept found.

Coverage of Hate in the U.S.

Similarly, when it comes to how the Gaza conflict translates to hate in the U.S., the major papers paid more attention to antisemitic attacks than to ones against Muslims. Overall, there was a disproportionate focus on racism toward Jewish people, versus racism targeting Muslims, Arabs, or those perceived as such. During the period of The Intercept’s study, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times mentioned antisemitism more than Islamophobia (549 versus 79) — and this was before the “campus antisemitism” meta-controversy that was contrived by Republicans in CongressOpens in a new tab beginning the week of December 5.

Despite many high-profile instances of both antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism during the survey period, 87 percent of mentions of discrimination were about antisemitism, versus 13 percent mentions about Islamophobia, inclusive of related terms.

We need to stop calling it settler, every inch of land on this planet has exchanged hands by bloodshed at one point or another, including your Canada.  If the settlers are living in these private lands for the cheaper cost of living, it's no different than the gentrification that happens in every US and Canadian city where the rich move into the land because it's cheap for them, but raise the value of the homes so much that those that already lived there can no longer afford to live there.