Tag: palestine

Video footage appears to contradict Israeli account of Gaza medic killings

Mobile phone footage has emerged that appears to contradict Israel’s account of why soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.

The video, published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), shows the vehicles moving in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on – before coming under fire. The PRCS said the video was obtained from the phone of a paramedic who was killed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on.

But in response to the new video, the IDF told the BBC: “All claims, including the documentation circulating about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation”.

A surviving paramedic previously told the BBC that the ambulances were clearly marked and had their internal and external lights on.

The latest video, which the PRCS said had been shown to the UN Security Council, shows the marked vehicles drawing to a halt on the edge of the road, lights still flashing, and at least two emergency workers stepping out wearing reflective clothing.

The windscreen of the vehicle being filmed from is cracked and shooting can then be heard lasting for several minutes as the person filming says prayers. He is understood to be one of the dead paramedics.

The footage was found on his phone after his body was recovered from a shallow grave one week after the incident. The bodies of the eight paramedics, six Gaza Civil Defence workers and one UN employee were found buried in sand, along with their wrecked vehicles. It took international organisations days to negotiate safe access to the site.

Israel claimed a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been killed in the incident, but it has not provided any evidence or further explained the threat to its troops.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar earlier this week echoed the army account, saying “the IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance”.

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Hamas Ready To Free All Hostages At Once For Permanent Truce

Amid an expanded Israeli military (IDF) ground operation, which has again seen Rafah surrounded, Hamas is signaling that it’s ready to release all remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.

A Thursday Times of Israel report cited a senior Palestinian official who described that Israel has had a “longstanding rejection” of such a deal, which is why Hamas has so far offered a phased release approach; however, negotiations are at a “standstill” as the IDF has moved to a military solution.

Israel has reportedly countered by asking Hamas to release eleven hostages, but with no commitment this would lead to permanent ceasefire talks.

“While Netanyahu signed onto the deal, he has long rejected the latter two clauses of phase two, arguing they would allow Hamas to remain in power,” the report observes. “Accordingly, he has largely refused to hold talks regarding phase two of the deal, which were supposed to begin on February 2.”

The senior Palestinian official sourced in the Israeli media report said, “The number of hostages is not the issue. If Israel demonstrates its intention to reach a permanent ceasefire, [Hamas is] prepared to release all of the hostages.”

“Israel only wants a partial agreement so that it can continue fighting. It wants [Hamas] to give up all the hostages without entering the second phase,” the official claimed.

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Trying to Block Arms to Israel, Bernie Sanders Denounces AIPAC’s Massive Election Spending

As Israel continued its monthlong blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and pounded the enclave with American bombs, in Washington the Senate on Thursday voted down two resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to block the sale of tens of thousands of 2,000-pound bombs and other offensive weapons to Israel.

The resolutions marked the second time since November that Sanders forced a vote on arms sales. Once again, they exposed a deep divide among Democrats and blanket Republican support for Israel.

The Senate voted 15-82 on the first resolution, concerning 2,000-pound bombs, with all Republicans present voting against it, along with most Democrats. Sanders was joined by 14 Democrats.

The second resolution, focusing on other weapons, fared even worse. It was defeated 15-83.

The Trump administration officially opposed the resolutions, along with the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Sanders, in a passionate floor speech, denounced AIPAC for its massive spending on last year’s elections.

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War, Doublethink, and the Struggle for Survival: Geopolitics of the Gaza Genocide

In a genocidal war that has spiraled into a struggle for political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and the global powers supporting him continue to sacrifice Palestinian lives for political gain.

The sordid career of Israel’s extremist National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, epitomizes this tragic reality.

Ben-Gvir joined Netanyahu’s government coalition following the December 2022 elections. He remained in the coalition after the October 7 2023 war and genocide, with the understanding that any ceasefire in Gaza would force his departure.

As long as the killing of Palestinians and the destruction of their cities continued as long as Ben-Gvir stayed on board – though neither he nor Netanyahu had any real ‘next-day’ plan, other than to carry out some of the most heinous massacres against a civilian population in recent history.

On January 19, Ben-Gvir left the government immediately following a ceasefire agreement, which many argued would not last. Netanyahu’s untrustworthiness, along with the collapse of his government if the war ended completely, made the ceasefire unfeasible.

Ben-Gvir returned when the genocide resumed on March 18. “We are back, with all our might and power!”  he wrote In a tweet on the day of his return.

Israel lacks a clear plan because it cannot defeat the Palestinians. While the Israeli army has inflicted suffering on the Palestinian people like no other force has against a civilian population in modern history, the war endures because the Palestinians refuse to surrender.

Yet, Israel’s military planners know that a military victory is no longer possible. Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently added his voice to the growing chorus, stating during an interview on March 15 that “revenge is not a war plan”.

The Americans, who supported Netanyahu’s violation of the ceasefire – thus resuming the killings – also understand that the war is almost entirely a political struggle, designed to keep figures like Ben-Gvir and extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in Netanyahu’s coalition.

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Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.

They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.

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Another Soldier Confesses: IDF Used Palestinians As Human Shields, Committed Other War Crimes

Another Israeli soldier and veteran of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has admitted that he was a party to war crimes — and says his commander ordered him and other soldiers to continue perpetrating those crimes even after they’d raised objections. This latest of many such accounts was given to CBS News by an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who agreed to speak on the condition that his identity wouldn’t be revealed. The experience that troubled him the most was his unit’s practice of forcing Palestinian civilians to probe buildings for improvised explosive devices.  

“They were Palestinian,” he said. “We sent them in first to see if the building was clear and check for booby traps…They were trembling and shaking.” So apparently common is the practice of using Palestinians in such a manner that it has a name of its own: the “Mosquito Protocol,” where Palestinians civilians are equated with the hated insects.  

The soldier told CBS that he objected to that abusive treatment of civilians, to the point that he took his concern to the chain of command — where it fell on deaf ears. “We talked to our commander, and we asked him to stop doing it,” he said, but said the unconscionable orders continued to be issued. 

The whistleblowing soldier who spoke to CBS says he continues to be troubled by what he personally did in Gaza. “I’m morally wounded. It’s fucked up, you know, to use citizens as your human shield like a dog.” The term “moral injury” describes psychological problems that spring from having observed, perpetrated, or failed to prevent actions that violate one’s sense of right and wrong. 

Of course, the people on the other end of the depraved practice battle their own psychological demons. CBS spoke to a 14-year-old Palestinian in the West Bank, where the IDF is accused of the same form of abuse. He claims he and his nine-year-old cousin were forced at gunpoint to search a four-story apartment building. “I was so scared. Then they started beating us,” he said. The IDF told CBS it prohibits this behavior.  

The soldier said he was witness to other IDF evils: “We’ve burned down buildings for no reasons, which is violating the international law, of course.” That confession should come as little surprise to even the most casual observer of the war, given the IDF’s astonishingly thorough and plainly visible destruction of neighborhoods, towns and cities throughout Gaza — and IDF soldiers’ enthusiastic use of personal social media accounts to share videos of themselves joyfully demolishing entire housing complexes. A January before-and-after analysis of Gaza using satellite imagery concluded that between 50% and 61% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. 

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Arab Complicity in Israel’s Genocide

Explaining Arab political failure to challenge Israel through traditional analysis — such as disunity, general weakness and a failure to prioritize Palestine — does not capture the full picture.

The idea that Israel is brutalizing Palestinians simply because the Arabs are too weak to challenge the Benjamin Netanyahu government — or any government — implies that, in theory, Arab regimes could unite around Palestine. However, this view oversimplifies the matter.

Many well-meaning, pro-Palestine commentators have long urged Arab nations to unite, pressure Washington to reassess its unwavering support for Israel and take decisive actions to lift the siege on Gaza, among other crucial steps.

While these steps may hold some value, the reality is far more complex, and such wishful thinking is unlikely to change the behavior of Arab governments. These regimes are more concerned with sustaining or returning to some form of status quo — one in which Palestine’s liberation remains a secondary priority.

Since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, the Arab position on Israel has been weak at best, and treasonous at worst.

Some Arab governments even went so far as to condemn Palestinian resistance in United Nations debates. While countries like China and Russia at least attempted to contextualize the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israeli occupation forces imposing a brutal siege on Gaza, countries like Bahrain placed the blame squarely on the Palestinians.

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30+ Met police smash down Quaker meeting house doors to raid anti-genocide gathering

Quakers in Britain have strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship by a gang of Met Police officers last night, which they describe as “a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo”.

The police, some armed with tasers, forced their way into the Quakers’ Westminster Meeting House and arrested six women campaigners who were meeting peacefully in a hired room – the first time in living memory that someone has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house, according to the religious group.

Police smashed the front door of the building without warning or attempting to gain peaceful entry first by simply ringing the bell. Young people’s anti-genocide group Youth Demand have also condemned the ‘insane’ assault on free speech and peaceful assembly, in a video statement by one of the young women at the event – who reported that police had seized laptops and phones despite only being there for supposed ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’. Three of the women remained in custody this afternoon.

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Israel Leveled Gaza — Then Killed the Drone Journalists Who Showed it to the World

Four years ago, Mahmoud Isleem al-Basos began messaging Shadi al-Tabatiby on social media, again and again, asking to join him on shoots. Al-Tabatiby, one of Gaza’s best-known drone journalists, didn’t pay much attention at first.

“But Mahmoud was persistent,” al-Tabatiby said. “So I told him, ‘Fine, I’ll meet you.’”

Twice, al-Tabatiby told al-Basos where he’d be filming; both times, al-Basos showed up and waited.

“There’s an age gap between us, but I love people who work hard and want to learn,” al-Tabatiby said. “I found that in Mahmoud.”

The two grew close, and al-Basos began joining al-Tabatiby on shoots.

Then came Israel’s war on Gaza. Al-Tabatiby, who was freelancing for The Associated Press, relocated to the south. Al-Basos stayed in the north. With movement between the two areas cut off by the Israeli military, they kept in touch.

Al-Tabatiby started assigning al-Basos shoots from afar, and the young journalist picked up work with international outlets, including Reuters and the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Even after al-Tabatiby evacuated to Egypt a year ago, they stayed in close contact.

Two weeks ago, on March 15, al-Basos was filming preparations for a Ramadan iftar in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia. The backdrop was a new expansion of a displacement camp opened by the London-based Al-Khair Foundation, which was paying al-Basos to film the event. Then two Israeli airstrikes hit the area. At least seven people were killed, including al-Basos.

“I was in shock,” Al-Tabatiby said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

He added, with incredulity, “We were in a ceasefire.”

Al-Basos became the fifth drone journalist to be killed by Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.

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Publisher’s Firing Shows Double Standard in Israel/Palestine Cartooning

“Watch your step,” says the soldier as he and a medic lead a hostage over a mound of corpses labeled “Over 40,000 Palestinians killed…” The caption reads, “Some Israeli Hostages Are Home After Years of Merciless War.” This cartoon by Jeff Danzinger (Rutland Herald, 1/20/25) was selected by editorial page editor Tony Doris to run in the Palm Beach Post (1/26/25).

After the cartoon ran last month, a local Jewish activist group took offense at the perceived antisemitic nature of the anti-war cartoon. The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County was so upset it purchased a full-page ad condemning the cartoon to run in the Sunday edition (2/9/25).

That Doris and Danzinger are both of Jewish descent did not deter the complainers. Neither did their politics. Doris (Stet News, 3/2/25) describes himself as pro-Israel, as well as the Post‘s “only Jewish editor.” Danzinger told comics scholar Kent Worcester (Comics Journal, 11/05) that he agreed “with a great many things that the Republicans have been traditionally for,” and that he voted for George H.W. Bush twice.

For his temerity to run an anti-war cartoon acknowledging the Palestinian dead, Doris was fired by Gannett, the conglomerate that owns hundreds of newspapers across the country, including the Post. Gannett issued a statement that the cartoon “did not meet our standards” and “would not have been published if the proper protocols were followed.” “We sincerely regret the error,” said the spokesperson for the Post, “and have taken appropriate action to prevent this from happening again.” Doris (New York Times, 3/2/25) remarked that Gannet executives are “afraid of their shadow.”

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