Tag: palestine

Israel ‘outright denied’ 90 percent of aid deliveries to north Gaza in November: UN

Israel “outright denied” 82 out of 91 attempts since 26 October to deliver aid to besieged areas in northern Gaza, said Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN humanitarian office in Gaza.

More attempts were unsuccessful because of “denials of specific locations or specific supplies,” he said in a statement reported by The Washington Post on 26 November.

The aid that has reached Gaza is being looted by criminal gangs, which are able to operate freely after Israel began killing members of the Gaza police attempting to secure aid deliveries earlier this year.

“It is tactical, systematic, criminal looting,” Petropoulos told the BBC.

He says this is leading to “ultra-violence” from “the looters towards the truckers, from the IDF towards the police, and from the police towards the looters.”

“Hamas’ security control dropped to under 20 percent,” the former head of Hamas police investigations told the BBC.

“We are working on a plan to restore control to 60 percent within a month.”

The BBC was told that “thefts often happen in clear sight of Israeli soldiers or surveillance drones but that the army fails to intervene.”

“Stolen goods are apparently being stored outside or in warehouses in areas under Israeli military control,” the BBC wrote.

As a result, hunger and malnutrition among Palestinians are increasing.

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‘The ICC’s findings so far have only scratched the surface’

Last week, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The court’s judges, in their Nov. 21 ruling, found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the pair were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the context of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza — namely, using starvation as a method of warfare, as well as “murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The ICC’s judges issued an additional warrant for the arrest of Hamas’ military chief Mohammed Deif, whom the Israeli army claimed it killed in July but whose death Hamas never confirmed; the group insisted at the time that Deif survived the assassination attempt, but has reportedly since acknowledged that he likely died. The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, had also requested arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, but Israel subsequently killed both men, in August and October respectively. 

The ICC launched a formal criminal investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel-Palestine in 2021, when judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories and those committed by Palestinians inside Israel. The scope of the investigation dates back to 2014, but these warrants relate specifically to the period between Oct. 8, 2023, and May 20, 2024. 

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End of Empathy: Did the Gaza Genocide Render the UN Irrelevant?

Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on October 29, the UN Special Rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other UN officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance.

“Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathize with the Palestinians?” Albanese said in her statement about the need to “recognize (Israel’s war on Gaza) as a genocide”. “Those of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room,” she added.

Was Albanese too idealistic when she chose to appeal to empathy, which, in her words, represents “the glue that makes us stand united as humanity”?

The answer largely depends on how we wish to define the role being played by the UN and its various institutions; whether its global platform was established as a guarantor of peace, or as a political club for those with military might and political power to impose their agendas on the rest of the world?

Albanese is not the first person to express deep frustration with the institutional, let alone the moral collapse of the UN, or the inability of the institution to affect any kind of tangible change, especially during times of great crises.

The UN’s own Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself had accused the executive branch of the UN, the Security Council, of being “outdated”, “unfair” and an “ineffective system”.

“The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today,” he said, referring to “Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine”. Also, although noting that “The UN is not the Security Council”, Guterres acknowledged that all UN bodies “suffer from the fact that the people look at them and think, ‘Well, but the Security Council has failed us.’”

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‘People’s Arms Embargo’ at Travis Air Force Base

Seventy-five protesters gathered under threatening skies at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California at 6:30 am on Wednesday, November 20. Their mission: to speak out and briefly interrupt the shipment of weapons to Israel from this air base.

For 90 minutes, they showed banners such as “Stop Arms for War Crimes” and “Stop Travis: No US Weapons for Genocide. ” They delayed traffic on the busy six-lane roadway into the base by frequently pressing the button to allow pedestrian crossing.  Fliers were handed out to receptive drivers. The flyers asked “Why are we blocking access to Travis Air Base and messing up your day?”.  It was explained that while November 20 is World Children’s Day, weapons to Israel from Travis are being used to kill children. Bombs loaded onto planes at Travis and other US air bases have killed many thousands of children.

David Vidmar grew up on Travis Air Base. He said, “I am participating in the People’s Arms Embargo to honor my father as he would have been sickened by the indiscriminate targeting, slaughter and starvation of Gazan children and women in Israel’s genocide.”

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‘Legacy of Horror’- White House Staffers Slam Biden’s Policy towards Israel

Around 20 White House staffers have criticized United States President Joe Biden for not enforcing an ultimatum on Israel to take “concrete measures” to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or face potential restrictions on arms provisions, Politico reported.  

“You are running out of time to do the right thing, but decisive action could save precious lives in the next two months,” the staffers wrote, according to a letter obtained by the American news outlet.  

According to Politico, the staffers who signed the letter – on condition of anonymity for fear of career retribution – work across the White House executive office of the president but are not directly involved in Middle East policy.  

“One thing that drew me into this was legacy,” a senior White House staffer who signed the letter told Politico, stressing that, “if the course is continued, it will be a legacy of horror.”  

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Israel ignores Biden ‘ultimatum’ over Gaza aid, but U.S. will continue sending weapons regardless

Last month the Biden administration announced that the Israeli government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza or else the country could lose access to some U.S. weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin established the deadline in a letter to Israel’s ministers, in which it laid out 16 conditions that Israel would have to meet. “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy,” it read.

When asked about the move during a press briefing State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reiterated the need for Israel to act.

“The bottom line is we felt it was appropriate, if we are making clear to the Government of Israel that there are these changes that need to be implemented, that we give them an appropriate period of time to implement it – implement them,” he told reporters. “We didn’t think it was appropriate to send a letter and just say this has to happen overnight; we gave them a – made clear there’s a short window in which we want to see changes, because the humanitarian situation is so dire on the ground.”

That deadline has now passed and a group of aid organizations (including Oxfam and Save the Children) have published a detailed report showing that Israel has failed to meet any of the conditions mentioned in the Blinken/Austin letter.

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Section 12 means British police are treating their own officers as terrorists now

A police officer has been arrested by counter-terrorism police in Gloucester over social media posts regarding Israel and Palestine. It’s no longer just journalists and social media users that police are targeting, it’s their own officers now.

The officer is suspected of “supporting Hamas” in breach of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Police have explained they’re going through the officer’s devices for analysis and say we should not jump to conclusions.

This is fair enough, and given the details are sparse, I’m not going to discuss the ongoing investigation, or the officer’s potential guilt or innocence. I am, however, going to discuss how police have handled similar cases in which they appear to have overstepped the mark because there are concerns to be addressed. Those concerns involve whether the law is being followed in this and similar investigations.

Police recently visited the home of journalist Asa Winstanley and took his devices for analysis, even though he was not under arrest. It seems they wanted to look through his devices to find the excuse to arrest a journalist.

If police were correctly applying the law in this instance, this would tell us that our laws are authoritarian. If they were not correctly applying the law, this would tell us they are acting in an authoritarian manner. Either way, we would be witnessing a form of authoritarianism. It is therefore reasonable to ask in each case if police are correctly applying the law. We need clarity because we have the impression our rights are under attack. This is obviously unacceptable in a so-called free society.

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Amid Gaza’s Humanitarian Catastrophe, US Claims Israel is not Hindering Aid

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met

The State Department announced on Tuesday that it has concluded that Israel is not hindering humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip and thus Tel Aviv is not breaching US law, Reuters news agency reported.

The declaration came on the day of a deadline previously set by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a letter on October 13 for Israel to implement a set of steps within 30 days to attend to the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

The letter had warned that “failure to do so may have possible consequences on U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The US administration’s denial that Israel is impeding aid entry to the besieged enclave also coincided with a scorecard issued by eight aid organizations indicating that Israel has indeed failed to comply with a number of requirements.

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met, Reuters said.  

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Israeli army ‘will not leave Gaza before 2026’: Report

The Israeli army is rapidly accelerating its plans to establish a permanent presence in the Gaza Strip, where it will likely remain until at least the end of 2025, according to a 13 November report by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. 

“The work is progressing at full speed,” the newspaper reported. 

“Wide roads are being built, cellular antennas are going up, water, sewage, and electricity networks are going in, and of course, there are the buildings, some portable and others less so,” it added. 

These plans have included the systematic destruction of buildings across Gaza, with the aim of ensuring that resistance fighters cannot hide in them. 

Israeli forces, as part of their extermination and expulsion campaign in northern Gaza, have forced tens of thousands out of their homes to transform the area into a military zone. Haaretz confirms that many Palestinians have refused to leave, despite artillery shelling which targets areas that remain inhabited. 

The construction work and setting up of permanent outposts have not been limited to the north.

“According to the plan that is being carried out, the army is acting to hold no fewer than four large areas in different parts of the Strip. One of the most prominent of them is the Netzarim corridor,” Haaretz said. 

The Netzarim corridor, which cuts Gaza into two and prevents the return of displaced Palestinians to the northern strip, was established in the early months of the Gaza war and has since been transformed into an extensive military facility with detention centers and permanent housing for soldiers.

The Haaretz report adds that a “combat graph for 2025” has been distributed to troops in recent weeks. 

“The way it looks on the ground, the IDF won’t leave Gaza before 2026,” a brigade officer in Gaza told the newspaper. “When you see the roads being paved here, it’s clear that this isn’t intended for the ground maneuvers or for raids by the troops into various places. These roads lead, among other places, to the places from which some of the settlements were removed.” 

“I don’t know of any intent to rebuild them; that isn’t something we’re told explicitly. But everyone understands where this is going,” the officer added. 

Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 10 November that the Israeli army has established permanent military installations across Gaza aimed at setting up a long-term presence and splitting the strip into three separate zones. 

According to the report, the Israeli army plans to separate northern, central, and southern Gaza from each other. Several new land corridors have been established in recent months, including one which aims to cut off the northern cities Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Jabalia from Gaza City. 

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US walks back threat to suspend Israel arms shipments as famine worsens in Gaza

The US government has confirmed it will not limit arms shipment to Israel despite worsening famine conditions in Gaza, walking back an official warning issued last month by top officials to “pressure” Tel Aviv into lifting its blockade.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on 12 November that the progress to date must be “supplemented and sustained” but that “we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law” by blocking the entry of food, water, and medicine for two million Palestinians.

“We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel stressed, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue progress.”

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